Forever Young
by Inescm
Summary: What does love feel like when you're young, dumb, and, worst of all, Chandler Bing? Mondler. AU. College.
1. Chapter 1

"Hmmpff..."

This muffled sound came out of me, and it pretty much summarized every thing wrong with my life.

_"Anything planned for the future?" _asked my sympathetic and almost centenarian English teacher, Mr. Patterson, in the middle of one uneventful day, as I got dangerously close to high school graduation. What a standard, business-like question this was, I thought at the time, so I simply waved my hand around and carelessly chortled.

_"Everything's gonna be alright,"_ I claimed with the negligent foresight of an eighteen-year-old that thinks the world will just obey to his demands.

The future was unclear, there was no doubt about that, but when college started peering right around the corner, I had no idea what to expect from it, but I somehow thought it was going to magically make things better.

Yet here I was, a year later and in the beginning of my second year, hmmpff-ing my way through college.

Where could I even start?

My life was monotonous at best, my days felt as long as they were insanely boring, and while I was plain clueless on what to do with my life, it gave the impression that wherever I'd look, everyone seemed to have it all figured out, as if it was just _so_ easy.

I quickly learned the lesson, too, that women wouldn't just line up at my door because I was a college erudite now—something that television had tricked me into considering effective. I suppose my childish features, lanky posture, and slow, patchy beard growth didn't help my cause, either.

So, this was me: confused, sarcastic, fresh-faced, boyish-looking Chandler, who had no idea what to do with his life but waste it away by lying on his perpetually unmade bed with his head buried in his pillow.

I desperately wanted to come up with a term for what was wrong with me. I wanted to say depressed, but that didn't quite cover it. I didn't feel complete sadness, but it was hard to wake up in the morning.

Who knew, maybe, just maybe, I simply was fond of sleeping.

But anyway. By that time, my rather pessimistic thoughts got interrupted by a key entering the lock. This seemingly simple action took me through another train of thought about how locks and keys—two inanimate objects with no feelings whatsoever—had better lasting relationships than me.

"Hey, man," Ross, my roommate, said cheerfully once the door had swung open. I didn't even bother to roll over, but I was polite enough to send another _hmmpff_ his way. This caused Ross to clear his throat—a sound he unconsciously based his entire existence upon. "Dude, someone special paid me a visit and I want you to meet her."

Ross' someone special came to mind. Her name was Carol, and even though they'd been dating for over three months, that didn't stop him from talking of her as if they'd been together for decades, all of his words brimming with affection, and love, and just pure devotion. Not to forget how they constantly made sure to spread around the story of their meet-cute, which became more far-fetched and implausible as time passed.

But then I thought, hold up a second, I'd already met Carol.

"This is my sister, Monica. She's moving to the city this week!" he said, bursting with excitement.

Oh, so it was his sister.

I must say that his cheery tone had deceived me. All Ross had ever said about his sister during our first year were bad things, even if they were said in that loving, fraternal way I'll never get to understand.

He claimed she'd done such awful deeds, in fact, that I now pictured her as some sort of Kathy Bates right out of Misery's finest moments.

I suppose you can perfectly picture the expression my face pulled into when I finally rolled over to say hello and there was no Kathy Bates in sight. I mean, not even close.

Once again, where could I even start? Oh boy. Her skin was freckled in all the right places, and her jet black hair was pulled into the most meticulous ponytail ever. She was smiling at me, her blue eyes shining, and she was wearing simple jeans and a Journey t-shirt, but fuck me if she wasn't the most gorgeous woman I'd seen in quite some time.

"Hello there!" I said, pathetically bolting out of the bed in a fraction of a millisecond. "Chandler Bing, the roommate."

"Hi, I'm Monica," she said, wiggling her fingers at me with a gracefulness I didn't even know existed. "I guess I'm the sister."

And then, silence.

"You might be thinking I have a peculiar name," I blurted, breaking it. "Well, I've got peculiar parents, too!" I finished, letting out a fake laugh and kicking myself for not being able to shut up when necessary.

"You're funny," she said, grinning and pointing quite an accusatory finger at me. I effectively started beaming like I hadn't beamed in my entire life. "In a sort of weird way, though," she clarified, and I definitely stopped beaming.

"Well..." I said, coughing out a nervous laugh, "thank you."

"No offense, sorry, I didn't mean it in a bad way," she quickly said, unconsciously taking a step forward and waving her hands. Ross witnessed this inevitable train-wreck as if he were watching a tennis match.

"Don't worry, it's okay," I brushed it off—she hadn't offended me per se, but I'll admit that my pride and self-love were severely wounded.

We didn't get off to a great start, that's for sure.

"Anyway, guys - hey, like I already said," Ross nervously cut in, feeling the awkwardness in the air, and placing his arm over his sister's shoulders, "Mon's moving into our grandmother's apartment next week, so she's gonna be around these days. You know, while she gets settled."

"Oh, yeah. I rented a room in a motel near this dorm for the week," she added, pointing her thumb towards our front door, as if her motel was standing right there. I peered over her shoulder: it was not.

"That's great," I concluded.

And then, silence again. Not awkward, but not comfortable either. I wisely decided not to break this one.

Five minutes later, Monica said her goodbyes, claiming she had to return to her motel to unpack—something I deemed unnecessary, given how she'd be packing again five days later. Monica just looked at me like I was some kind of monster, and then tried to forget she'd heard such a ridiculous suggestion.

After the shock of that incident had worn off, she said it was nice meeting me, and I reciprocated.

But when the door clicked shut, though, I lay back down on my bed, oblivious to the fact that she was going to be the light I desperately needed in my oh-so-dark life.

* * *

A/N: Okay, a couple of things!

First of all, the show belongs to Bright, Kauffman &amp; Crane Productions, NBC Studios, and I don't know who else, but I'm pretty sure it's not me. I mean, I don't even own the apartment I live in, and it's a place where we have to store the fridge in the living room.

Fun fact: I googled 'boyish-looking' to see if I should hyphen it, and a picture of Matthew Perry came up. Of course, it was in an article that was trying to highlight how rough he looks now, but that's entirely unimportant.

The title comes from Bob Dylan's Forever Young. I don't know why I decided to write this from Chandler's point of view, but I do know it's been a lot of fun. I'm a pretty ridiculous person by nature, so expect to see lots of ridiculousness in this story. Oh! And Misery came out in 1990, and this is supposed to be, what? 1988? I trust you'll let that one slide.

And that's pretty much it. I'll shut up now.

Please, please, please, review. :)


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, you know what I mean," Carol said to Monica as I became aware that I'd completely tuned out of the conversation for the seventh time that night.

Monica was still in the process of moving into her new apartment, alone in this big city, so Ross had decided to invite her to come with us for the day. 'Us' included Ross, Carol, and myself, and I couldn't be more grateful that she was tagging along, since it seemed that I'd been stuck in the unpleasant role of being a third-wheel for more time than I'd like to admit.

Ross wanted to catch a movie, but Carol wanted to go out to dinner, so that's why we were now sitting at a booth inside the tacky restaurant we were regular clients of, for no particular reason other than money being extremely tight. I was pressed between Ross and a wall, while Monica and Carol were sitting across from us.

"Yeah, totally," Monica responded as I took a sip of my drink, taking her straw between her forefinger and thumb. "I mean, with my first boyfriend, it was love at first sight."

And she said it so serious, I momentarily forgot I had manners and let out a ridiculously loud snort. This caused me to almost choke on my drink, and I coughed uncontrollably for a few seconds. I don't know if the main reason was the snort, or the close-to-death experience with a liquid, but now everyone had their heads turned in my direction, and I just wished there were cushions in my seat so I could at least snuggle deeper into them and hopefully disappear for as long as it was needed.

"What?" Monica asked, in a confused and almost guilty tone.

I opened and closed my mouth several times, but no sound came out. I mean, I didn't want to be disrespectful, of course, but it was hard at times like these. "Nothing, I'm sorry. It's just..." I nervously laughed, "I don't think there's such a thing as 'love at first sight', that's all," I said, air quotes and everything.

"Well, I was just using the expression," she said, unsure of herself, picking at the leftover food in front of her. Poor thing, I was starting to feel bad for laughing at her, but that disrespectful snort came to me naturally, as if there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

"It's kinda sad that you don't, though," Carol felt the need to add. I had the proper 'it's kinda sad that you do' patiently waiting for my mouth to release it, but I could feel Ross staring at me, his eyes begging me to, please, be kind to the prospect of the love of his life.

"Well, okay," I simply said, hopefully ending this conversation for good. Carol wasn't sold on my idea.

"I bet he doesn't believe in love, either," she said to Ross in a mock-voice, and I heavily wondered when had this woman become so painfully annoying.

"Not really," I absentmindedly said, and I swear to God, she audibly gasped, pulling a hand to her chest.

"You don't?" Ross asked, although not as emotionally upset by this revelation as Carol.

"Well, I don't think so. I mean, I've never experienced it, and I've never seen other people experience it, not really," I stumbled over my words, scratching the side of my neck, "and it's not like I believe in everlasting love either, anyway."

"Yeah, that's like believing in God, man," Ross insisted. "You can't see it, but you gotta believe something's out there, so you can keep having hope," he finished, making gestures in the air with his hands, probably to give words like 'something', or 'out there' the meaning they surely lacked. I gave him a tight-lipped smile, because this conversation was seriously starting to border on the ridiculous.

"Yeah, I don't believe in God either."

"Then you're just hopeless, man," he concluded, patting my back awkwardly.

"Maybe," I said, "but c'mon, I'll keep thinking love's a sham until I'm proved otherwise. Faith is something innate, and unfortunately, I was born without it."

"I've been in love," Monica chimed in, timidly raising her hand, after having been quiet for most of the conversation, "so I can tell you it exists - there's your proof."

"Yeah? Who was it?" Carol asked, brushing her hand against Ross' and stealing a loving glance his way. Jesus Christ.

"That guy, the first boyfriend," Monica easily said, talking about this mysterious fellow who was so perfect she fell in love with him within seconds of meeting him.

"But," I took a deep breath, already tired of this conversation, "you're not together now, right?"

"Well, no..." her voice trailed off.

"Then, what's the point?" I asked, flailing my arms with labored awkwardness and expecting a good answer.

"But we're still friends?" she half-pointed out and half-asked, slight desperation lining her voice, probably due to her inability to give me the good answer I expected.

"Well, that just proves my point even more!" I flailed my limbs around some more. "You just can't be friends with someone you've been in love with."

"Personal experience?" Monica asked, her eyebrows shooting up.

"No, common sense," I said, feeling more proud of that answer than of anything I'd done in the last month.

"Yeah, okay, whatever," she waved her hand dismissively, and I realized Carol and Ross weren't paying attention to the conversation anymore, because important things like feeding each other were taking place. "But one day, you're gonna fall crazily, stupidly in love with someone. You know, the kind of love that is so intense you just can't help but feel like every little thing inside of you hurts," she leaned in closer, lowering her voice, and looking deeply into my eyes, "and when that day finally comes, I just hope I'm there to laugh at you and tell you the appropriate 'I told you so.'"

She was feisty, this Monica. I liked her already.

"Well, one can only hope, huh?" I said, smiling.

"Given you're hopeless, I'll have hope for both of us, don't worry," she said, smiling back.

* * *

A/N: This is short, and nothing really happens, but I'm trying to set things up here, and of course this chapter's going to get referenced in the future. Next one's longer, and things do happen, yes.

And thanks a lot for the reviews, favorites, and follows! They're very much appreciated, and oh, please, keep them coming so I can be a happy gal.


	3. Chapter 3

"So," I started, unsure, "you wanna do something later today?"

I was asking the question, yet all I could hear were the words, _"Dude, you gotta turn your life around."_

That was Ross, talking to me, and it was hard to believe that the guy who spent most of his days inside a library actually thought my life was depressing. What a wake-up call, that was. The truth is he might've been slightly right, so that's why after sleeping until 3:00 P.M. one day, I quickly made the decision that some things had to change in my life; maybe not a lot, but a few would be good. I at least wanted to do something other than eat, sleep, and repeat, with occasional trips to class in between.

I made a long list, enumerating every single thing that was wrong with my tedious routine, and when I was done, to socialize more became my number one priority. When Ross was not at the library, he spent most of his time with Carol and, apparently, people don't think highly of me when they first meet me, so I went to a sure thing.

And either that sure thing was Monica, or at least my brain was magically wired to think she was. I don't know which one is more accurate.

Monica had been in New York for over a month now. She was taking classes at some culinary school in the city, shared her apartment with a classmate, and she seemed nice enough during all the times we'd been in the same room together. Ross had probably told her all my weak spots: stupid jokes, inappropriate jokes, unfunny jokes, clumsy, disorganized, immature.

And I was probably aware of hers, since she was a very obvious person: desperate need to please people, borderline OCD, competitiveness, and obsessive tidiness, which was not hard to notice, since she'd meticulously made my bed while I was in the bathroom the couple of times she'd visited. I suppose the worst part of this statement is that I'm not joking.

We weren't what you'd call soul mates, and I probably was everything she hated, but she was nice company, and maybe she didn't hate the idea of doing something with me so much. All very nonchalantly, by the way, never uttering or thinking the word 'date', because, really, it wasn't that. Plus, I don't think she would've accepted if it was, anyway, given how she was attractive, and full of color and life, while I was just an apathetic fellow that she'd deemed as 'weird' within seconds of meeting.

"Yeah, of course. I'll come by your dorm later," she responded from the other side of the line, and oh, so easily.

When she arrived that same evening, we ordered pizza for dinner, and found that Ross owned a copy of the first Indiana Jones movie, which he'd forgotten on top of his desk, so we ended up watching it. (I liked the film, she liked Harrison Ford.) She also laughed at _most_ of my jokes, even some of the very bad ones, and that was enough to make me beam for the rest of the month.

"You wanna do something next?" I asked once the movie was over, closing the pizza box after having finished the last slice myself.

"I don't know," she shrugged, pushing a loose strand of hair out of her face, "it's Saturday, so it'd be depressing to go back home so soon, you know?"

"So, you have something in mind?"

"Not really," she said, and her lips puckered into the most adorable pout I'd ever seen. "Why don't you think of something and surprise me?"

"Yeah, okay, isn't that convenient for you," I said with a hint of sarcasm, and she laughed and shrugged her shoulders again. I didn't respond well to pressure, so my mind was almost entirely blank. Maybe what I had in mind was a bad idea, but it was the first and only thing that had popped into my head, so I decided to go with it. "Okay, I might have something."

"Yeah? What?" she eagerly asked, and I smirked.

"Patience, little grasshopper. You'll see."

"Oh, c'mon now. Tell me!" she said around a laugh, innocently placing her hand on my right leg.

At that precise moment, I honestly had no idea. I could no longer remember how to process thoughts and put them into words, let alone figure out where I wanted to take her. This temporary outage in my brain was motivated by how dangerously close her hand was to my crotch. I shouldn't be this pathetic, really.

"Well?" she insisted, thankfully oblivious to the whole ordeal I was going through at the moment.

"Uhm, look, we can take a walk and I'll show you," I stuttered, and she looked intently at me, which made me want to explain myself further, "I mean, it's not far, and we could hang out there, if that's okay."

"Alright, yeah, that actually sounds perfect," she finally said, removing her hand from that dangerous zone. What a relief, I could almost see myself wiping some imaginary sweat off my imaginary brow.

"Great," I managed to let out.

"Let's go, help me," she said, reaching out that infamous hand, and I helped her get up. She then smiled at me, leading the way out the door, and even though she was now happily charging ahead of me and couldn't even see me, I smiled back at her like some fool as I followed her, until I realized what an idiotic action that was.

Once we were out, we started walking and talking side by side for a couple of minutes until we reached a place filled with trees, insane amounts of vegetation, birds chirping by day and crickets cricketing at night, and an isolated swing set in the middle. It was behind an abandoned building not far from my dorm, and to be honest, it looked much scarier in the dark than it did under the sunlight, so she probably thought I was going to murder her and then proceed to dump her lifeless body into the river.

"Anyway, here we are," I said, stretching my arms in the air, and feeling like now it was too late to go back.

She took a look around and, to my pleasant surprise, she didn't seem afraid at all. She stared open-mouthed at the swing set before smiling at me and saying, "It's really nice, I love it."

And this might seem crazy, but I'd known her for less than a month, and before tonight we'd been in the same room a total of five hours at most, and I never thought I'd be sharing this place with anyone, but she was so likable, and I was so predictable, and my insides churned in a funny way every time she smiled at me, which she did a lot.

"Thanks, I didn't know where to take you, and this seemed odd at first but, I dunno..." I trailed off, pushing a hand through my hair.

"Aw, I really love it," she exhaled, her breath visible in the crisp, night air.

"Well, then I'm glad," I concluded, a bit out of things to say, and then I gave one of the swings a light kick, setting it in motion.

"You know, I don't even know you," she said, stating the obvious, and for a moment I thought she was going to jump into my lifeless-body-in-a-river theory, "but I find you quite interesting."

'Interesting' was possibly the nicest thing anybody had said about me in the past 3 months, and if I were out of words before, my brain didn't even know how to properly function at this point.

"But that's okay," she continued, plopping down on the unmoving swing and tucking a leg under her. "I mean, we have plenty of time to get to know each other. At least I do."

"Yes, totally," I pressed my back against one of the metal posts, standing close to her. "I mean, I do too."

"Tell you what, let's do something to get this show on the road," she said, clasping her hands and resting them on her lap, and I nodded. "I ask you one question, and then you ask me one, and so on and so forth. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, fine by me."

"I'm sorry if it sounds lame," she continued, "but it's an easy way to get to know each other and pass the time, don't you think?"

"Sounds good to me," I shrugged with a smile planted on my face.

"Oh, great. Okay, it's my idea, so I'll go first," she said, rubbing her hands together in anticipation.

I chuckled at her excitement, and then gestured with my hand, "Go ahead."

"I could be really mean with this, you know, I can get really competitive," she said around a laugh, and then waved her hand dismissively. "Anyway, what's your favorite song?"

"Oh, you see," I started, wrinkling my nose, "I don't wanna get into music territory, because it can get really embarrassing."

"Okay, then..." she trailed off and scratched her chin dramatically, "tell me your best childhood memory."

"I, um..." I cleared my throat, and really thought about it for a moment. Maybe it was my being under pressure problem, or maybe it was reality kicking me in the crotch, but I finally said, "I can't really think of one."

"Your worst childhood memory then?" she insisted.

"Too many to pick just one," I joked, my lips quirking at the corners, and she eyed me wearily.

"You know, you may be the worst person to play this with," she said, and I huffed a laugh.

"Bet you don't think I'm that interesting now, huh?"

"Nah, it's kinda the opposite, actually. You're just this big question mark," she said, and goddamnit, she always seemed to find all the right words when they were needed, and that made me feel irrationally jealous. "Okay, what about this one: why do you like this place?"

"Oh, I just..." I shrugged, and put my hands in my pockets, "this is my favorite place on earth," I blurted, and that sounded so incredibly corny, I got the urge to shoot myself in the face to spare me the embarrassment that surely had to follow. "I mean, right now it is, anyway," I stammered, trying to fix the mess, "It's very likely tomorrow's gonna be something else, but right at this juncture," I gestured with my hands, "_this_ is it."

She laughed softly, probably due to my blinding ineptitude. "Yeah? Why's that?"

"I don't know. It's isolated, it's ironic, and the idea of its existence is just ridiculous," I said. "I mean, no one's gonna bring a kid here."

She swayed lightly, the creaking of the rusted metal breaking the silence. "You're getting more interesting by the minute, just so you know," she said, fixating me with her eyes, and I let out a nervous laugh.

"Then I don't think we should hang out more, 'cause I want you to think that forever," I half-joked.

"There's no such thing as forever, y'know," she said, turning annoyingly philosophical. After a beat, she blurted out, as if this conversation hadn't been strange enough, "Are you depressed?"

And for a moment, I just furrowed my brow without saying anything. "Sorry, what?"

"Are, you, depressed?" she repeated, emphasising every single word like I was some sort of imbecile.

"No, I heard you, but..." I trailed off, trying to think of something clever that would get me out of this, "your turn to ask questions is over, actually."

And well, at least I tried.

"Sorry, I made you uncomfortable," she said, and well, of course she had, although I didn't really want her to know that.

"No, it's okay, but..." I fibbed, pushing a hand through my hair, "why would you say that?"

"I don't know... Honestly?" she asked, and I nodded. "I think you try to hide it, and you're kinda good at it, but when you think no one's looking at you, you just look plain sad to me. Not in an awful way or anything, but like you're lost or something," she whispered, and maybe it was simple-minded to think this now, but I wondered when she'd been looking at me.

"I don't..." I started, a slowness overcoming my voice, "I don't really know what I am."

"No?" she said.

"Not really. I mean, it's like I'm just waiting for my life to start or something," I continued, my face and my words growing extremely vague. "It's like I'm incomplete, but I don't really know what's missing, if that makes any sense."

"Are you lonely?" she insisted.

"I don't know," I shrugged my shoulders again, "I mean, this must mean I'm a walking contradiction or something, because I'm kinda tired of being alone, but at the same time, I really like this place 'cause it's deserted and no one's here to disturb you or anything, you know what I mean?" I said, and then I smiled sweetly at her, which she reciprocated.

"Maybe you just have to bring here the right people, you know, the people who won't disturb you," she continued, trying to throw me a bone, and I slowly bobbed my head up and down while considering this.

"Maybe," I mumbled.

None of us said anything next, and absolute silence filled the air momentarily, until a sympathetic cricket started chirping in an effort to make the stillness a bit more tolerable. "Whoa, this got very depressing, very fast," I said, and we laughed together, and while her laugh was full, mine sounded completely empty. Perhaps that's what she was talking about before.

"Yeah..." her voice trailed off.

"Do I get to ask you something now?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said, her voice raising an octave, which was the clear and obvious sign that her excitement was coming back. "Shoot me."

"Okay, um..." I thought about it for a moment, massaging my neck with my hand, "I don't know, what's _your_ favorite song?"

"God, it's so lame to ask that now. You disappoint me, Chandler Bing," she last-named me, and her shoulders dramatically slumped, like she was actually disappointed in me as a human being. "Come on, ask something good; something better!"

"You know, I don't really like this game," I said, but started thinking of a better question anyway. "Er, what's..." I trailed off, clicking my tongue and shaking my head, and then I snapped my fingers, "No, okay! What about..." I gulped down some air, "I dunno, something that you really want to do? That's better, right?"

I smiled proudly, asking this seemingly innocent question, yet she just looked at me, her eyes totally fixed on mine, and for a moment I thought I'd asked the wrong thing for the second time in this stupid game's short existence.

But then it just happened. So hurried and unhurried, all at the same time. She got up from the swing, clutched my shirt with one hand and touched my face with the other, and then she just looked into my eyes in a way I'd never been looked at before, leaned in and kissed me. And then I kissed her back, and it was sweet at first, but passionate at last, and for as long as we kissed, I didn't feel troubled anymore.

And when she pulled back, she pressed her forehead to mine, and whispered into the air or into my mouth, right there in front of the abandoned swings, "I think I like you."

And I just smiled, and thought to myself that, God, how and when did this happen, I liked her back.

* * *

A/N: Again, thank you so much for the reviews. They really mean the world to me. That said, have you guys watched American Dad? There's an episode where Roger begins to slowly die unless he's extremely mean to people. Well, turns out I'm actually the same, except it has to do with receiving reviews. So, please, be kind, review, and keep me alive.


	4. Chapter 4

"You think my hair looks ridiculous?" I asked as I swiveled my chair around, close to the bed where she was sitting.

28 days had passed since that night by the swings, and it made me realize that no divine intervention was needed for me to get out of bed - I only needed Monica. Ross was surprisingly pleased with the news that her sister and best friend were seeing each other recreationally - not at first - but wasn't as thrilled with Monica's constant presence in our room, given how we'd seen each other practically every day since we'd started dating.

"Why?" she said, bursting into uproarious laughter, as she pressed her back against my headboard while distractedly going through the pages of an almost empty Moleskine she'd found in a drawer. "Do the bullies in your class tease you endlessly or something?"

I stopped halfway through a spin to glare at her, and she sobered up. "No," she shook her head, stopping her journey through the blank pages, and examining my hair as if she hadn't been around it every single day in the past month, "it's messy, I like it."

"Monica likes it messy?" I said straight-faced, cocking an eyebrow. "You know, you kinda look like her, but your words sound weird somehow. Be honest with me now: who are you, and what have you done to her?"

"Shut up," she said around a chuckle, and started scribbling something down on the Moleskine. "By the way, I always forget to ask you something," she said after a beat, finally closing the journal and leaving it on top of my nightstand.

"Ask away," I said, sitting back in my chair and folding my hands.

"Why do you have a guitar there?" she asked, pointing her finger at the guitar placed in the corner of the room. "Do you play or something? I know Ross can't, and I also know it's not his," she concluded, her voice filling with a bit of excitement due to the prospect of her boyfriend being the musical type.

"Oh, this old thing," I said, stretching myself to grab the guitar by its neck and pulling it into my lap. "Yeah, I never told you that?"

"Well, I don't think so, no..." she said in a low voice, as if she felt personally offended that I hadn't told her such an appealing fact about myself, even though I was now tugging at the strings of the guitar without any kind of sense or rhythm. She was endearing, there was no doubt about that.

"I'm just kidding, Mon," I said around a laugh, and she visibly relaxed. "I can't play this, in case you haven't noticed yet."

"Okay, you're a good liar," she pointed out, eyeing me suspiciously. "I don't think I like that."

I chuckled. "I'll try to be a bad liar from now on, then."

"Is there any particular reason you have it?" she finally asked, ignoring my comment.

"Aw, I just... wanted to learn how to play when I was a kid," I smiled longingly, stopping my playing efforts, because it was impossible for me to talk and not move my hands around. "So one day, I innocently broke my piggy bank and went to this music store, and I'm pretty sure the guy sensed right away I was not a very bright kid or something, 'cause he totally ripped me off," I said, and truth be told, Monica's reaction to this turn of events was a peculiar one. I couldn't tell if she was shocked, amused, or both at the same time. "Yeah, he took all my money and didn't even sell me a new one."

"Oh, you poor thing," she said while rubbing her hand against my leg. Once that gesture of comfort was out of the way, she pursed her lips together and covered her mouth with her hand, trying not to disrespectfully laugh at my misery. So, amused it was.

"You can laugh, don't worry," I reassured her, and so she did laugh. But with moderation, because she was very considerate.

Once her laughter had died down, though, she moved to where I was sitting not so far away from her on the swivel chair and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "You're so cute," she added, probably out of guilt, and then she brushed her fingers against the spot where her lips had just made contact. I grinned from ear to ear because... well, how could you not. Everything was still a little surreal to me. I was waiting for the moment I'd say something stupid and I'd scare her away.

"And anyway," I cleared my throat, and she returned to her old spot on the bed, "that's the story of why I bring this shitty thing everywhere with me, if only because it cost me 150 bucks."

"Great story, I applaud you," she lied, because her applause never actually materialized.

"Thanks," I smiled at her, and then she rested her head on my pillow while I stubbornly insisted on the guitar, playing it more softly this time, in what I hoped was a less unpleasant sound.

"Chandler?" she asked after having been quiet for a few seconds.

I hummed a sound in the back of my throat.

"Are you gonna laugh at me if I ask you something stupid?"

"Of course not, Mon," I absentmindedly said, my attention still on the guitar.

"Okay, I don't even know how to say it, or even if I should say it, but..." she trailed off, unsure, and that was enough to make me look at her and forget all about the guitar on my lap, "are you aware that we haven't made love yet?"

And she'd phrased it so beautifully, I didn't even know how to respond. It didn't matter if she was talking about a one-night stand: Monica didn't bone; she didn't fuck; she didn't even have sex. She _made love_ and, for some reason I couldn't quite begin to grasp, she always referred to it as such. To be honest with you, this is something I'd eventually come to love, even if it was a wrongly used expression most of the time, but only because it said so much about what kind of person she was.

That said, of course I was aware. I was only spending 90% of my time with the most beautiful woman I'd ever met in real life. I seriously didn't know why it hadn't happened yet. My usual self would've sought sex on the second date – first, if too desperate - but for some reason I couldn't even comprehend yet, I felt like this time was different. Everything came naturally - things didn't need to be forced, and that was nice.

"Nope," I joked after a beat, smiling sweetly at her, this strange wave of affection washing over me. "Didn't even cross my mind."

And she giggled at my effort of a joke, but of course punished me for not answering things seriously by slapping me lightly on the leg. "You're dumb," she pointed out the obvious.

"I try," I slowly said. "I try very hard."

"So, so dumb," she repeated, shaking her head and repressing a laugh, and then she turned her back to me and pressed her face against my pillow. She was now facing the wall, her eyes closed - or so I assumed -, and when she fell completely silent, the room felt compelled to obey, doing the same. For a moment it seemed like the only sound in the entire room was my own breathing.

Breathe in. Breathe out. And so on.

Now it looked weird to think about it, but before she'd come crashing into my life, I would take my breathing as the only sign that I was indeed alive, even if I didn't feel like it. Who knows, maybe I was, finally, for the first time in God knows how much. I'd managed to find solace in someone who had the ability to make me feel full of life, even after having been dead for so long.

So, I took a final, deep breath, and I put the guitar down slowly, leaving the swivel chair vacant. I moved gently to her side, putting my arms around her and holding her as tightly as I could. "Of course I'm aware," I whispered into her hair, so low that I thought maybe she hadn't heard it. When she entwined her fingers with mine, I took it as a sign that she had.

After a few seconds where no one said anything, she finally rolled over, took my face in her hands, and then she sweetly kissed me on the lips - so briefly I was left yearning for more. And then she just looked into my eyes the way she usually did when no words were necessary, and let me tell you that they weren't necessary this time.

And that's when I knew, and she knew, and I suppose the whole world must've known, too, that it was the right time now, between my being dumb and her being adorable. This is not something I can properly explain, but we truly knew it like we knew our own names, or the year we were born, or what color we loved and what color we abhorred. I felt it in my heart, and I felt it in my bones, and I felt it up my spine; my whole body shivered and my mind felt dizzy for a second where I didn't even have to work hard to hear what my own heart was trying to tell me. But the truth is, for whatever reason, we just knew.

And so we made love, whatever that meant, for the first but not last time in our relationship, my secondhand guitar witnessing it all, and perhaps the euphoria I experienced made all the thinking for me at the time, but, for a split second, I truly considered that maybe, just maybe, this feeling of being alive didn't have to be temporary.

Maybe it could be forever.

* * *

(...) And then Ross walked in, perpetrating an embarrassing and disturbing coitus interruptus for all the parts involved. Not actually, no, I'm just joking!

That guitar story might sound stupid, but it's actually true. And yes, it pains me to say that it happened to poor, innocent, young me.

Anyway, I've been extremely (and unusually) busy this week, so I wasn't planning on updating the story until, at least, this weekend, but your reviews were so damn great, and they made me so happy, that I tried to find some time to post this. Thank you so much again!

And please, review :)


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I quickly wanna point out something. Nothing of utmost importance is going to happen for a couple of chapters. My plan is for this to be some pointless, silly, quirky, adorable moments between the two, so that when I *SPOILER* kill Chandler off in a merciless accident involving a bus, you'll hopefully think that they were so perfect together and that life is so unfair!

Nah, I'm just kidding - I should stop doing that. That said, I'm a big fan of foreshadowing, so not everything is pointless.

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed.

I don't know what was more evident; the thud with which I'd fallen to the ground, or the forcefulness in which my pride and dignity had dissolved into the puddle of snow, frost, and meltwater I was now lying on.

"God, Chandler," Monica said, approaching me and covering her mouth, "are you hurt?"

"I don't think so," I uttered like my entire soul was, indeed, hurting, and wrestling myself to a standing position.

"Are you sure?" she asked, unconvinced by my response, gripping my arm so I wouldn't fall down again in the process.

"Well, my ass is soaked, yes. But overall I'm fine, don't worry," I dismissively said, and she took my statement as definite permission to cup my posterior with one hand. "Hey, don't take advantage of me, woman!"

"It looks fine to me," she ignored me, proceeding to put her other arm around me, so she could place her hand on my other butt cheek. "Yeah, it's not that wet."

"You sure? I'm not gonna lose my ass to frostbite, then?" I said, laughing.

"Yeah, I'm sure," she soberly said against my chest, rubbing my butt with some more fervor, like we were not in the middle of the street.

"Look, I'm not complaining, but another second of that, and I'm gonna have to demand some money," I joked, and she repressed a laugh, clasping her arms around my neck, and kissing me; slowly and sweetly. I started to feel like my wet, aching buttocks had been totally worth it.

"Anyway..." her voice trailed off once she'd pulled apart, brushing some leftover snow off my clothes and hair. When she considered I looked decent again, she smiled at me, taking my hand in hers. "Alright, let's keep going."

There's a reason behind my behind's wetness, and it's the following: I'd been happily coming back from the nearest store with some groceries in my hand, when Monica, who'd been patiently waiting for me inside the halls of my dorm, came into view. "You call some skittles, a Mars Bar, and a bag of Doritos, 'groceries'?" she'd lectured me while taking a thorough peek inside my bag.

When the dismay and outrage had properly worn off, she informed me that she wanted to show me something, and that it was time-sensitive, so we should leave as soon as possible. (As I would later find out, this was a blatant lie, by the way.) Once we were out, of course, my - rather bad - luck made me to step on an ice patch, and fall down in a funny manner. For a longer moment than expected, I just lay down on a puddle of my own dignity, with a sore ass and a craving for my left-behind Doritos. What a cruel, cruel world.

"Come on, come on!" Monica said.

"But where are we going?" I whined, in a rictus of agony, as if I were a 6-year-old child being dragged against his will by his mother. The more than common 'are we there yet' was on the tip of my tongue, fighting for its release.

"Be quiet, you'll see," she said, brimming with a patience that was slowly running out.

"But it's too cold out here!" I moaned some more.

"Chandler, stop whining!" she ordered, taking a fistful of snow and planting it on my face. She giggled, extremely proud of her actions, and I hope you'll note the sarcasm in my words when I say it was very funny.

"You think you're funny, but you're not," I deadpanned while flicking some ice off my face, now getting into the role of a perfect 60-year-old man.

"Well, then that makes two of us," she said, damaging whatever pride I had left. "Now come on!" she excitedly yelled, tugging at my hand and dragging me across the unusually deserted street.

"You know there's a blizzard coming, right?" I pointed out to her, just in case. "Are we gonna be indoors by then?"

"Jesus, shut up, you wuss!" she shouted over her shoulder, and say what you want, but the warmth and affection with which she'd uttered those words was more than crystal clear to me. Naturally, this wuss obeyed, and just 45 seconds later, she stopped dead in her tracks, lifted her index finger, and pointed towards somewhere ahead of us, "Look, it's your mom!"

And I physically flinched, using Monica's body as a shield, "Wha- Where?!"

"Right there! Isn't that her?" she insisted, wiggling her finger and pointing to the window display of a well-renowned library situated short of 30 feet away from us, and where a big poster of my mother, her upcoming book in her hands, was hanging for everybody to see.

"Gee, I didn't know it was a poster," I visibly relaxed, letting Monica's shoulders go. "You scared the hell outta me, Mon."

"Chandler, but that's so cool!" she turned to face me, gripping the lapels of my jacket.

I snorted. "Why?"

"What do you mean, 'why'?" she asked, staring at me like I was deficient in good judgement and/or intelligence. "Your mom's famous."

"Yeah, she's famous for writing erotica novels. That's not... _cool_," I pointed out, making air quotes.

"Sure, but my boyfriend's mom is famous!" she talked in a dreamy tone of voice, ignoring my usage of air quotes along with the whole statement that had preceded them.

"So this is why I'm freezing my balls off for?" I asked in disapproval, full of incredulity. Monica just stood still for a moment, avoiding my eyes like she was considering what to say next.

"Actually, yeah..." she trailed off. "I saw it the other day coming over to your dorm, and I was too excited not to show you. But okay, don't worry, we can go now," she shrugged, like it was no big deal, and okay, I felt bad. "My place?" she asked, but then made her way in the other direction, without waiting for me to answer.

"Hey, I'm so sorry," I said, catching up with her and bumping my shoulder against hers. "You're right, it was... _cool_."

"Yeah, I know," she responded, even though my apology sounded as insincere as it was well-intended, taking a hold of my hand, "and someday, you'll know it too, don't worry."

I wasn't really fond of her ambiguous reply, and while my usual answer would've been cracking some unfunny joke, this time I decided to stay quiet, trying to let that statement sink in, or at least figure out what it could possibly mean.

* * *

"Alright, your turn!" Monica said, playing with one of my shirt's buttons.

"Okay, let's see..." I started, clearing my throat and scratching my forehead, "I had a girlfriend on the fifth grade, and everybody called her Betty Spaghetti," I recounted, trying to top her story of having dated Peter The Cheater in our own contest of disastrous relationships. I suppose the demise of Monica and Peter's affiliation is not mysterious. "She was... well, you can imagine. But I actually dumped her because she smelled like pickles, poor child. You know how it is, right? Kid logic."

Me watching the weather report was an odd occurrence, no doubt, but it eventually paid off better than I'd ever expected it to, and the impending blizzard I pointed out to Monica a couple of hours earlier was taking place at the moment. We were lying down on her couch as close to each other as it was physically possible, trying to dodge the inevitable chill her apartment was immersed in, ever since her heating had been mysteriously broken. I'm not going to say that it was me who broke it, but who am I trying to fool: it was me.

"That's so mean, poor Betty," she said around a laugh, readjusting the blanket and then laying her hand on my chest.

"Her name was Melissa Simmons, actually," I said, pausing for a brief moment. "You know, maybe it's because of my more than eccentric background, but school was no walk in the park for me, so when I was little, all I wanted was to grow up."

She hummed in agreement. "Yeah, me too."

"And now I'm like, 'Seriously? This is it?'" I said, and let out a humorless laugh. "It's pretty much the same, except now I've got all these responsibilities to deal with. I don't think I like it."

"Well, you better start liking it, because that's pretty much life from now on," she easily said, like she hadn't just uttered the most frightening sentence I'd heard in the past two months.

"And doesn't that scare you?" I asked, and for a moment Monica didn't say anything, and just tightened her arms around my body.

"No. But I like responsibilities," she finally pointed out, and I laughed softly.

"Sure, of course you would. But you don't count. You're like an eighty-year-old woman trapped in the body of a twenty-year-old one," I blurted, nuzzling my face in her hair afterwards so she would take no offense in my, otherwise, offensive comment - It didn't work, of course. She sharply pushed me away, raising her head to look at me, and then indignantly puffed some air out of her mouth.

"Well, you have a five-year-old kid trapped in yours. Responsibilities," she scoffed loudly, "you wouldn't be able to identify a responsibility even if it went and poked you in the eye."

Ouch.

"Yeah? Well, you wouldn't be able to identify 'fun' if it poked you in the eye either!" I lamely retorted, and then we just held each other's gaze for a few moments in complete silence.

I'll admit that it truly felt like the tension was awkwardly palpable, and that I could hear the wind violently rattling against the windows, like it wanted to take part in this staring contest, but when it seemed like things could not possibly get any more uncomfortable, after a moment's deliberation, we simply burst into uproarious laughter in wonderful unison.

And it was not the kind of laughter that might come out of you because of a joke (certainly not one of mine); it was more like the wonderful kind of huge, hysterical laughter that pours out of you because you just can't hold it in any longer, and that wracks your whole body, and that makes you feel light-headed, and foolish, and bleary-eyed afterwards.

My theory is that we both felt like this was an incredibly lame topic to base our first fight on. That's how I felt, at least. I certainly didn't want to look back in twenty years and mull over the fact that we'd broken up over things we would or would not recognize once they had poked us in the eye.

"Aw..." I let out a time-consuming sigh once we'd calmed down, wiping my eyes, and maybe it was because of all the eye talk, but my innocent wiping unconsciously derived into some furious rubbing. "I wonder how Melissa Simmons is doing."

"Crying over you still, I bet," she said, slapping my hand away so I wouldn't disintegrate my eye with all the rubbing.

"Yeah, she better," I said around a chuckle. "Who knows, maybe she smells like roses now. I think I should look her up in the phone book or something, y'know. I'd totally give her a call," I said, tongue-in-cheek, to which Monica responded by kicking me off the couch.

Maybe my wit was not as sharp as I'd imagined, and maybe the shock of my head having missed the coffee table for just a few inches is totally at fault here, but after I'd let out the appropriate high-pitched scream that lasted longer than I'd care to admit, I just stayed unmoving on the floor, my hands folded on top of my stomach, later realizing that I looked exactly like, I don't know, a corpse in an open casket or a sleeping beauty. You decide.

"You comfy cozy down there?" Monica asked after I'd maintained radio silence for a few seconds, peering over the couch to check out my best living corpse impression.

"I'm comfy cozy, yes," I gloomily said.

"I'm sorry you fell to the floor, babe," she mumbled. "I guess I'm stronger than I think."

"Well, you shouldn't have kicked me in the first place," I pointed out, my icy insides melting slightly due to that term of endearment, and she heaved a sigh.

"Hey, you're right, come here," she tugged at my shirt, ordering me to stand in a more vertical position. I may or may have not feared another physical attack, so I unfolded my hands and propped up on the palms. Once I'd complied to her demands, though, she just stared into my eyes for something that must've been a few seconds but that seriously felt like a lifetime, and I had no idea what she had in mind, but she must've felt guilty, because she leaned in closer, resting her hand on the side of my neck, and then gently pressing her lips to mine.

I'd like to point out that Monica's mouth works in very mysterious ways. So, while it all started off as a totally sweet, genuine, and innocent gesture, I feel obliged to mention that it became downright hot at an impressive speed, too. And that while I'm perfectly aware that I tend to magnify things beyond the limits of truth and reality sometimes, I'm being absolutely sincere when I say that things became unbearably heated rather quickly.

The truth is, when I thought I was already bordering on insanity due to such an unexpected display of emotions, she slid her tongue into my mouth like it held all the answers, she sat on my lap and pressed her body to mine like there was no tomorrow, and she traced lines with her finger along my ear in a way that made all my insides feel like they were going to explode, and God, I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

"You wanna do something to pass the time?" she abruptly said into my mouth in an almost whisper, and God yes, I wanted.

"Yes," I weakly whispered back, and she gave me a peck on the lips.

"Does Risky Business sound OK?" she asked, pulling apart, and for a blissful moment I thought it sounded great. I was sadly forced to abandon my state of pure ecstasy when she snatched a tape from her coffee table, and placed it in front of my face - Tom Cruise was now staring deep into my soul. After a few seconds where incredulity was all I had, I finally caught on, and I'm pretty sure my heart started crying inconsolably. (Well, not my heart, exactly, but you get the idea.)

"I rented it a couple of days ago. I've been meaning to watch it," she said as she thoroughly eyed the back cover of the tape, and I tried to clear my throat, even though it had dried up completely. "_'Meet the model son, who's been good too long,'_" she read out loud. "Whoa, sounds riveting."

"Are you for real?" I managed to get four words out of me, and then swallowed thickly - maybe that would do the trick.

"Yeah, I'm for real," she repeated, easing herself up and out of my lap, and I decided to move to the couch and cover my nether regions with the blanket. "Why?" she asked after a beat, her eyes still on the case.

"I dunno, I've heard there's some saucy stuff in there," I pointed out, running a hand through my hair, not sure about how I should broach the subject of how surreal this all seemed to me. "I'm not complaining, though. Just informing you."

"Ah, Tom Cruise can do no wrong in my book," she said, opening the case and sliding the tape into the VCR, without waiting for me to accept, or refuse, or jump out the balcony in the middle of my despair. That's when I mournfully realized that this was a losing battle, starting with Monica being happily oblivious to the fact that there was any battle in the first place. She started to push some buttons on the machine, and then added, "Plus, I love watching movies with you. Your snarky remarks always crack me up."

And I'll admit it: that's when my heart stopped crying.

"Okay, yes. I'd love to watch Risky Business with you," I said, my mouth pulling into a captivated smile. "I'm sure I can make some fun of Mr. Cruise for you."

"This is gonna be so much fun," she excitedly concluded, throwing me the remote.

"Yeah, but don't get mad at me when I stare at Rebecca De Mornay's breasts," I said, my captivated smile turning into a smirk.

"Sure, don't worry," she easily said (I don't think she was listening to me), plopping down on the couch and snuggling closer to me under the blanket, as the movie started in front of us. "I'm not joking, by the way, I've wanted to watch this for a really long time!"

Yeah, she fell asleep within 20 minutes.

* * *

A/N: Remember when Tom Cruise could do no wrong in your book? Yeah, me neither.

Okay, I'll stop being so judgemental now.

Thank you for your kind words, people! I always try to thank you all privately, but I'd like to leave a shout out to those of you that write reviews as guests, since I can't thank you by PM, and they're appreciated just as much. And please, oh please, more :)!


	6. Chapter 6

"Chandler, I'm not so sure now, this is trespassing!" she said from the other side, bordering on hysteria.

"It's not trespassing if it's your house," I answered, clumsily climbing up the wall that separated me from the backyard of what used to be my house.

The night had reached a point that could only be described as deadly dull, and we somehow found brilliant the idea of opening Ross' desk drawer to extract the keys to his car without asking him (first felony of the night). "C'mon, I'm sure he won't mind," I said as I tried to reassure Monica, even though I was blatantly lying. He owned an old, rundown 1976 Toyota Corolla he'd inherited from his father and that was originally red, but that had turned into an ugly, orange-ish color once the years had started passing by. He barely even drove it, and all because New Yorkers were "too aggressive to trust whilst on the road."

Driving it for a couple of blocks had turned into driving until 2:00 A.M., and that's when I pointed out that this neighborhood looked familiar, and then realized that it was where I grew up. Curiosity got the better of Monica, and she insisted that we sneak into my mother's house (second felony of the night), so she could get a good glimpse of my past, before realizing that, yes, this could be trespassing.

"You could've brought your keys or something, y'know," she whispered while witnessing my blinding lack of skills in the art of climbing.

"Of course, because when the night started, I knew I was gonna break into my own house. Yeah, that sounds reasonable," I grunted in a fairly normal tone of voice, given the circumstances. Monica deemed it as unacceptable, so she ended up shushing me.

"Chandler, we gotta keep it down," she said, pressing a finger to her lips, as my feet finally hit the grass. Now that we were reunited once again, she grabbed my hand in one quick motion and then whispered, "By the way, this might sound stupid, but you don't have a dangerous dog or anything, do you?"

"No, I hate dogs, actually," I nonchalantly said, "and the only animals in my mom's life were sacrificed so she could wear them in the winter," I finished, and her eyebrows shot up, her jaw hit the floor, and she completely omitted my, otherwise, lame joke. Well, it could've been worse.

"You-, you hate dogs?" she incredulously asked, and I couldn't help but groan. "But they're so cute!"

"Please, let's not spend the night discussing my irrational fear towards those ferocious creatures," I said jokingly, although it wasn't a joke at all. She just nodded and proceeded to take a look around, and I started to relax again. That was one of the things I liked most about her, actually. She knew perfectly when to push further, and when to step back.

"Wow, I never knew you had a pool. This is so cool!" she said excitedly, pointing at it while dragging me across the yard.

The kidney-shaped swimming pool was in the middle of this huge backyard, next to the pool house, all surrounded by green, and squared hedges, and flowers with names way too sophisticated for me to learn them. It came to mind that, of course, my mother would have everything except the usual squared pool, because that would mean she's normal. I'm pretty sure she considered something as ridiculous as a heart-shaped pool, or better yet, a penis-shaped one, before deciding it was too much, even for her.

"Yeah," I shrugged. "Although this got built when I wasn't living here anymore, so maybe it's not that cool."

"God, and it all looks so perfect and clean!" she carried on and beamed, ignoring my statement and digging her shoe into the perfectly cut grass. "I thought you said your mom didn't live here in New York."

"Yeah, and she doesn't, not really," I said while she rested her head on my shoulder, both of us still in front of the pool. "But she hired a maid, and a gardener, and whatever to take care of the house while she wasn't around."

"You know, maybe we should get inside," she suggested in a shivery tone after a beat.

"Oh, yeah, sure," I said, rubbing her arm in an effort to warm her and considering the possibilities. "If I remember correctly, that living room window was broken, so it could be opened from the outside," I continued, and she looked up at me with big eyes. "Shall we try?"

"Yeah, go ahead," she nodded, laughing softly, and I moved to the window, gave it a try, and then c_lick_, it opened. I let out a triumphant laugh, of course.

"Alright, ladies first!" I waved my hand at her, and she walked through it, mouthing a thank you.

Once we were inside, I felt overwhelmed by how tacky and disproportioned everything in this house was, as if I'd somehow forgotten about it. On the other hand, Monica seemed enthused, taking it all in, as if this place would tell her everything about me when it was the total opposite. I ran my fingers along the dust-free furniture, and then Monica gasped, lifted a framed picture, and asked me while biting her lip, "Is this you?"

"Uhm, no," I said as I took a step closer, examining the picture. Monica's shoulders slumped forward in disappointment, like this was the twentieth photograph she'd asked about that night. "That's actually Marcelo, a peruvian kid my mom sponsored out of boredom, so she could write him off on her taxes later."

She chuckled. "Really."

"Yeah, I guess you should've known by the fact that he doesn't look like me at all," I ticked one finger off, "he's suspiciously tanned, and," I pointed at it, a smug smile tugging at my lips, "he wrote his name right there on the picture."

And she just smiled at me in that way I couldn't even begin to describe in a million years, even if I wanted to, but that basically said something like, 'you smartass' in a loving way that only Monica could pull off.

"You know, now that I think about it, having a picture of Machu Picchu instead of one of your own child sounds very much like something my mother would do," I continued, sounding more offensive than I'd intended.

"Hey, don't be mean," she said, furrowing her brow.

"I'm not mean, I like Marcelo!" I helplessly defended myself, and her frown deepened. "I mean, this poor kid would write a letter in English every month even though he had no idea how to speak the language," I let out a chuckle. "Aw, very funny, seriously."

Monica just scoffed, staring into my eyes and trying to search for the answer that was right. When she found none, she turned around, shaking her head, and walking towards another picture, this time of my mother and a gangly, pale man wearing a suit. "Is this your dad?"

Yeah, like that was a possibility.

"No," I repeated without even taking a look at the picture. Her shoulders slumped again, this time looking like she'd just lost all faith in humanity. "Let me see... that's my mom's third husband, yeah," I pointed out, and it came to mind that she'd been married two more times after that, so I confirmed she didn't come to New York very often. Why would she, though? It's not like she had a child here or anything. Monica just put the picture down carefully, a disappointed expression on her face.

"Okay, enough of this," she waved her hands dismissively, and then started bouncing up and down, like a little kid on Christmas Morning. "Show me your room; I wanna see Chandler Bing's teenage life!"

"Oh, you see, I went to a boarding school, so I didn't live here when-"

"Well, then I wanna see Chandler Bing's childish life!" she cut me off quickly, bouncing still.

I chuckled softly. "What? Aren't you satisfied with the daily amount of it you receive?"

And there it was again, that stupid smile that made my insides churn in the most enjoyable of ways. "Come on!" she shouted, because Monica couldn't control her volume when she was excited. She tugged at my arm, dragging me upstairs. When we reached my bedroom and I opened the door for her, I went straight to the bed, jumping onto it, and she went straight to what she was most interested in: pictures. This time, she picked up a framed picture of my mother holding a toddler.

"Okay, please, please, please," she pleaded, and I propped up on my elbows to look at her, "for the love of God, tell me this is you."

"I've been told that is indeed correct," I conceded, "but honestly, for all I know, it could be Marcelo," I joked, crashing back down and resting my head on the palms of my entwined hands.

She seemed so pleased with herself, an 'I knew it' look on her face, as if she hadn't inspected every single picture of the house. "So cute," she quietly said, running her thumb across the length of the frame, and a tiny smile overcame my lips. "Such a shame you've turned into _that,_" she gave me a nod, wrinkling her nose.

"Ha-ha, I know. Such a tragedy," I said as she put the picture back in its place.

"And good view of the pool, too," she continued, carefully opening the window and letting the February breeze enter the room. "Whoa, you ever sneaked out through this window? I mean, look at that tree, it's begging me to jump onto it!"

"No, I usually sneaked out the door. It's safer, y'know," I mumbled with my eyes closed.

"Sure, whatever," she dismissively said, closing the window, and as if bothered by the lack of pictures, she went to sit down on the bed, next to where I was peacefully lying. "So, this is your bed, huh?" she asked after a beat, bouncing slightly while sitting on the edge.

"This is my bed," I murmured under my breath, while she tucked a leg under her.

"Tonight's been nice," she pointed out after a moment's hesitation, carefully brushing some hair out of my face.

"It has been nice," I said with my eyes still half-closed, enjoying her touch.

"Are you repeating what I'm saying?" she asked, eyeing me wearily.

"I'm repeating what you're saying," I repeated.

"Okay, so..." she started, a suspicious little smile curving her lips. "Are you dumb? Yes or no?"

"I'm dumb, yes or no," I repeated, and we both laughed.

"Have _you_ had a good night? I mean, now seriously."

"I've had a good night, yes," I nodded, opening my eyes at last.

"Yeah? Tell me why," she sweetly demanded, her voice low.

"Because I was with you," I easily said, and her eyes crinkled in a smile. I'm an incompetent person by nature when it comes to a lot of things, but I sometimes know what to say when it really matters. I sometimes don't, though.

"Yeah, I like being with you too," she agreed this time, cocking her head to the side.

"Tell me why," I repeated her previous request, wanting to suffer a shameless inflation of my ego.

"I don't know," she started, her face pinched in concentration, and my ego deflated a bit. "I just do. I mean, you're a fantastically great guy, and sometimes you just can't help who you fall in like with, no?" she said, and I reached out my hand to squeeze hers. "Does that even make sense?"

"Yeah, I think it does," I nodded, and at least to me, it did.

"Great," she broke into a pleased look, and traced lines along my jaw for a moment. "Anyway, you wanna go back outside? We could stay by the pool, and bring blankets, or something," she suggested, and then her eyes widened suddenly, as if struck by the thunderbolt of inspiration, "oh, my God, and we could go through the liquor cabinet, too!"

Old Monica would've considered popping a grape into your mouth in the middle of the supermarket as a well-deserved, punishable crime, yet it looked like taking her brother's car and breaking into her boyfriend's house had turned her into a true felon.

"Wait a minute..." I trailed off, letting out a chuckle. "Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?"

Monica just stared at me blankly, as if I'd been speaking Russian. "What are you talking about?"

"You know," I said, even though she looked like she didn't, "The Graduate?"

"What graduate?" she desperately asked, and I pushed myself up in frustration. "Who the heck is Mrs. Robinson?"

"Jesus, Monica! The film with Dustin Hoffman?" I said, awkwardly making gestures in the air with my hands.

"Ah, okay, you were talking about _that_!" she finally said, thank God, slapping her head softly. "The thing is, I haven't watched it yet. We should rent it someday, now that you mention it," she suggested, and then added, "But I loved him on 'Justice For All', he was great!"

So much for thanking God, right?

"Yeah, sure, he was fantastic," I humored her, my lips pulling into a conceited smile.

"_'No, you're out of order!'_" she terribly imitated Al Pacino, pointing at me.

"God, Monica, how are you so cute?" I laughed, pulling her into my lap, and then we melted into a hug that was highlighted by the mess of limbs we'd suddenly become. "But look, let's forget about that, and do the pool thing. That was actually a good idea," I breathed against her neck, tightening my arms around her frame, "but no alcohol, because I just_ know_ you're gonna throw yourself at me, and I'm really tired tonight."

Monica adorably chewed her lip to stop herself from laughing, and swatted my arm lightly. I responded to that by taking her face in my hands, and bringing our lips together in a short kiss. She nibbled my lower lip for a magnificent moment, and then we made our way down the stairs by the hand, and I truly felt giddy with excitement, not that I would show it, but I really did. Maybe it was because we were together, and maybe because we were alone, and maybe because this was no ordinary experience and everything felt fresh, and new, and exciting when I was with her, but I really didn't care why this was the case - I just loved it, and that was all I knew.

Once we'd approached the pool, I stood by it for a minute, admiring the view, and she went to get some blankets. Everything that happened next feels kind of muddled in my head, but I'll try to explain it as best as I can. The thing is, I've always believed that the universe likes to balance itself out, and I'd been feeling so lucky for such an extended period of time now, that I worried about when things would take an ugly turn for me. Well, yes, they took an ugly turn that same night.

She must've been gone for over a minute, and I was happily checking my watch, trying to figure out how much time she'd been inside the house, and that's exactly when I felt two little hands on the small of my back, and half a second later, what seemed like the cold, clammy hands of death around me, before realizing that yes, she'd pushed me into the swimming pool in the middle of February, and yes, there was nothing I could do about it.

I clearly see how I might be exaggerating things right now, but that's how things truly felt at the moment.

Naturally, I let out an embarrassing shriek underwater so it wasn't audible to the rest of the world, and then I resurfaced, my hair falling in my eyes, water dripping from my face and clothing. "What the hell are you doing?!" I yelled, pushing my hair back with my hands. She was standing right there on the edge, with her hands on her mouth and her eyes wide open. She didn't look like she was going to say anything, so it ended up being me the one who finally broke the silence, "Are you crazy?!"

"God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" she said in a loop, and then added, "It was like an impulse, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't even realize what I was doing 'til it was too late, so so so sorry!"

"Fuck," I said, quivering already, but she was being so adorable that I felt guilty for yelling at her, even though I had every right to do it. "Okay, listen to me. I won't get mad, but only if you come in here too."

"Excuse me?" she asked, looking at me like I'd suddenly gone crazy.

"Well, I'm not gonna push you or anything," I reasoned, "but I don't know what else is fair, so..." I trailed off, helplessly shrugging. She seemed to be considering my words, which was a surprising revelation.

"Okay..." she finally agreed, with the guiltiest voice ever. "Just let me take some clothes off, so they won't get wet," she continued, struggling out of her overcoat.

"No, no, no, no, no," I shook my index finger dramatically, "with your clothes on, it's only fair." And it was, even if asking a woman to keep her clothes on was such a ridiculous request I almost started cackling like a maniac.

"But, Chandler, that's not fair! You have clothes upstairs! If I go in there, I'm gonna get pneumonia, and then die, and then you'll feel guilty forever," she whined, but put her coat back on anyway.

"Oh, please, give me a break! I have clothes from when I was ten years old up there. Come on now, just take it or leave it," I crossed my arms over my chest, if only to look tough while my teeth chattered.

Monica simply looked blankly at me for a few seconds, and then groaned loud enough for every neighbor to hear it, but sat down on the edge anyway, before jumping in and paddling quickly towards me, clutching my jacket once she'd reached the spot I was in and clinging to me. She was holding me so tightly that I ended up putting my arms around her, and she buried her head in the crook of my neck. I admit that she looked so small and harmless in my arms, that I started to feel really guilty for doing this to her, even though she'd done it to me first.

Life is just funny like that.

"Hey, come on, let's go inside," I whispered into her hair, and she nodded, never disentangling her arms from around my neck.

* * *

When I regained consciousness the next morning, I was aware of two things.

One, how my arms were around Monica, and how the heat of her body was the only warmth I needed.

Two, something was poking me in the side.

I opened my eyes and found out that hovering over me was a plump woman with brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She had her short fingers wrapped around a mop, and an annoyed look on her face. To top it all off, she angrily blew some air out of her nose.

My first reaction was to jump back, of course, which caused me to bump my head against the wall. Once I'd yelped appropriately and rubbed the back of my head with the palm of my hand, my second reaction was to pull the sheets closer to my chest in the old-fashioned way, as if I had breasts to hide.

"Who are you?" she narrowed her eyes at me. I knew Monica was awake because her whole body had tensed, but she just stayed unmoving, probably shocked by such a scene.

"Who are _you_?" I narrowed my eyes back at her, feeling braveness breed inside of me for a fraction of a second.

"Don't you give me no bullshit, son. Who are you," she demanded the information this time, all in a thick New York accent that would make the aforementioned Al Pacino shiver.

"I-, I'm Nora's son," I stuttered, braveness totally lost on me now.

Surprisingly, her expression softened, and she almost looked guilty for disturbing me. "Oh, my God, it's you!" she exclaimed, giggling like a schoolgirl, and I nodded knowingly. "Lil' Marcelo, I saw your picture!"

"Yeah..." I kept nodding, not truly processing what she'd just said. "Wait a minute, what? No, no, no, of course not!" I flailed my arms in a very much Chandler-fashion, and I could hear Monica laughing softly to herself. "I'm Chandler."

"Oh, yeah, of course, excuse me! Chandler," she said, as if she'd made an honest mistake and _of course_ knew that Nora had a son named Chandler. "Anyways, so sorry to intrude. I'll give ya kids some privacy," she added, and just like that, she was gone.

As soon as the door clicked, Monica turned around to face me, tightly clutching the sheets to her body. "Who the hell was that?!"

"I dunno. The maid?" I said, shrugging my shoulders.

"Well, then I'm so glad your maid saw me naked, she seemed nice," she put her arms up in the air dramatically, getting out of the bed in all her glorious nakedness and unfortunately throwing some clothes on. "We gotta get out of here!"

"But why? You don't want her to fix us some breakfast? That'd be perfect, actually," I wistfully hummed and lay back down on the bed, getting comfortable. Monica was not sold on my idea: she pulled the sheets away from me in one swift motion.

"Of course not. Come on, we can go out the window," she said, her eyes widening suddenly, as if she'd just had the most brilliant idea ever. "Oh, yes, yes, for old time's sake! You could do something crazy for once!"

She folded her hands together, mouthing the word 'please' again and again to me. I must admit, it did sound insane, but she was talking so excitedly that it was hard for me to crush her excitement, so I finally heaved a sigh. "Alright, hand me my clothes."

"Yes!" she exclaimed as she hastily threw different parts of clothing at me, and then we made our way out through the window – Monica giggled the entire time - in what could've been the escape of the century, had we not bumped into Carlos, the gardener, and Billy, the pool cleaner, once we'd reached the yard.

"Have a nice day!" Monica yelled as she waved them goodbye with her hand and I opened the gate that led to the street. We made our way to Ross' car, and when I was opening the passenger door for her, I heard a voice shouting from the threshold of the house. It was the chubby maid, but let's call her Doris.

"You goin'? You kids don't want some breakfast? There ain't no food, but I could run to the store!" Doris politely offered. I eagerly looked at Monica, but she just scrunched up her face in disapproval.

"Nah, but thanks for the offer," I said to Doris, walking to the other side of the car. She giggled like a schoolgirl again, and it was hard to believe that such a sound could come out of her mouth.

"Don't mention it. Drive safe!" Doris said, waving us goodbye.

"Thanks!" I waved back, easing myself into the car. When she closed the front door of the house behind her, I turned the engine on and pulled away from the curb slowly. Monica balanced her feet on the dashboard, and took one hand out the window. She seriously looked like she didn't have a single care in the whole world. It was enviable.

"That was so much fun," she said around a laugh from the Toyota's passenger seat.

It was so much fun, indeed.

* * *

A/N: Maybe the fact that I wake up everyday with a poster of Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock staring down at me has something to do with all The Graduate references. Anyway, we're halfway through the whole thing! I never intended for this fic to be too long, and, if everything goes as planned, there will be five-six more chapters. (I'm still trying to decide whether I should add another pointless chapter or not. I'm leaning towards... yeah, why not.)

Oh, and a couple of weeks ago I got accepted into a programme to study next year at UCL, and besides cracking my head every single hour of the day, trying to figure out how I could possibly afford living in London, I'm drowning in paperwork, and inspiration's not really my friend at the moment. So, maybe some feedback and good lovin' could help! It will be incredibly appreciated as always, that's for sure.


	7. Chapter 7

I don't know how we'd come to this point, but I think it all started when Monica found a basketball under Ross' bed, raised her eyebrows, and then asked me if I played with a suspicious grin across her face. My automatic response was to throw a self-deprecating quip at her, of course, blissfully thinking that it would be the end of that conversation.

How wrong I'd been, since that sequence of events seemed to have filled Monica's head with nonsensical ideas.

Three days later, a light knock on the door aroused me from a deep, pleasant sleep. Well, almost - even though the dream I'd been immersed in ten seconds earlier had completely vanished, my body was not ready to awake just yet. A surprisingly enjoyable white noise filled my ears, the appealing heat that radiated from my comforter comforted me, and my head dove deep within my pillow, as if it were made specifically for me. I was, put plainly, in heaven itself.

But then I heard a voice.

"Chandler?" a woman whispered from the other side, and I pushed myself upright with a start. _Monica?_ my mind wanted to shout, but my tongue was not helping. I must admit that, for a moment there, I didn't even know what hour, month, or year it was; I barely seemed to remember my own name. According to her it was Chandler, so I decided to trust her.

Since my identity was not a mystery anymore, I tiredly dragged my body across the dark room while Ross snored loudly, as if unaffected by this disruption. I swung the door wide open, and yes, Monica was standing there, hoisting a duffel bag over her shoulder.

"Hi!" she said with unacceptable cheerfulness this early in the morning. My eyes opened slightly in response, but just enough to make out whatever was in front of me. A strangled, choking noise that didn't seem to resemble any word known to man bubbled up in my throat, and Monica gave me a sideways glance. I cleared my throat a couple of times, very aware that once wouldn't be enough. Ross finally stirred.

"Saturday... early...?" I mumbled in a hoarse voice every word that came to my head in my confused state of mind, sleepily rubbing my eyes with one hand and ruffling my tousled hair with the other. Ross seemed to have stopped snoring by then. "Wait, you okay?"

"Yeah, everything's alright. I think it's 8 o'clock or something. And yes, it's Saturday," she easily said, like the thought that her words could be extremely confusing to every single, solitary human being on the face of the planet hadn't even crossed her mind. I must've looked puzzled, because she continued, "I just thought we could play some basketball or something. Remember how you said you wanted to enjoy your days as much as you could?"

_Not really_, I thought at the moment.

"Did you just say it's 8 o'clock?" I said around a yawn. "In the morning, you mean?"

"Of course in the morning," she answered, shooting me a glance that had 'moron' written all over it. "Anyway, you up for it? Please, say yes!" she eagerly pleaded.

I opened my mouth, more than ready to say no.

"Monica, for the love of God, go home," Ross drowsily mumbled from under a mess of sheets and blankets. "You're clearly not thinking straight."

"You shush. This has nothing to do with you," she replied, finally stepping into the room, and switching the lights on. Even though Ross' head never really made act of presence that morning and he never worded a proper response other than groaning, I clearly remember how he raised a hand, his middle finger sticking out triumphantly.

"I'm not so sure about this, Mon..." I quietly whined.

"Look, maybe you should just get dressed now, and then you'll thank me later," she turned her attention to me, dismissing Ross' obscene gesture with a roll of her eyes, and rummaging through my scattered around clothes, "and maybe organize this a little bit, too; it's making me crazy, and I've been here for a minute."

I opened my mouth again, because I wanted to fight, and I wanted to sleep, and I definitely wanted to avoid taking part in any kind of athletic event, except I simply put on the clothes she hastily threw at me, and then got dragged to wherever she wanted to go as if I were a man possessed, because, frankly, I was just too tired to contradict her.

It took us almost 50 minutes to walk to an empty basketball court in a park in the middle of nowhere (that fact alone made me want to commit suicide), and even if comfortable beds occupied my mind most of the way, I couldn't help but think of the fact that she wanted to play basketball with me. I mean, really? Basketball? Do I even look remotely good at basketball?

In any case, when we got there, Monica took the ball in her hands and then looked around the deserted basketball court for a minute, hopefully realizing what a huge mistake she'd made. I hoped, because in case mentioning it three times wasn't enough, I just wanted to sleep some more.

"You know, I don't think you've thought this through," I started, taking a pack of cigarettes out of my jacket pocket and placing one between my lips. "I mean, y'know, we're two people, and we're alone, and you want _me_ to play basketball? It sounds kind of ridiculous, if you really think about it."

"Chandler?!" Monica half-asked, half-exclaimed. It was something I'd call a shrieking question, but I may be making that term up.

"What," I said with little care, all my attention focused on lighting my cigarette.

"Are you smoking?!" she incredulously asked, stressing all the possible syllables that those three words allowed. That's when I realized what I'd been doing, and why Monica'd sounded louder than usual.

"Aw, shit, yeah," I said, taking a first, long drag, not ready to let it go so quickly. "See how early it is? I don't even know what I'm doing."

"But you told me you'd quit," she pointed out the truth.

"True, yeah, you're right..." I said, breathing in slowly and enjoying these treasured moments as much as I could.

"So?"

"So, well, it's possible I might've lied," I admitted, blowing some smoke out of my nose. If I'm honest, the pleasure that that little cylinder held inside of it was incredibly hard to give up.

"You might've lied?" she parroted me, letting go of the basketball dramatically, as if we were in the middle of some second-rate movie. Monica's expression of pure horror when she found out a few months ago about my 'disgusting habit' (her words) was still pretty much ingrained in my head.

"Yeah, I mean, you seemed so upset when you found out I was a smoker, but I don't think I'm ready to quit just yet," I hesitated. "So, I try to smoke when you're not around, which is incredibly difficult, if you think about it, because... well, you're almost always around."

"Okay, well, I'll be less around then," she raised her arms in the air, bobbing her head, and radiating sarcasm. I thought my mind was the impaired one due to such unearthly hours, but Monica's didn't seem to be working very clearly either.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," I rolled my eyes, taking another drag off the cigarette.

"And what was your brilliant idea, anyway? How are we supposed to play now? You won't be able to perform any physical activity without an oxygen tank or something," she pointed out.

Quick interruption: I'm not sure if my mind was simply very dirty, but I swallowed back some comments about how I'd been performing physical activities with her for months, free from any kind of medical assistance. A smirk tugged at my lips.

"I'm sorry, but I really, really needed to breathe some of this. If you want me to function properly, that is," I smirked some more.

"God, you're slowly killing yourself..." she whispered, staring at me from the corner of her eye and folding her arms across her chest. I came to the conclusion that things were better left unsaid, so I shut up, and so did she. That is, until she started to examine me from head to toe. Then, her lips seemed like they were quirking at the corners for a second, but a proper smile never really materialized, so I didn't know how to confirm my suspicions.

"What?" I asked, eyeing myself from head to toe, too.

"Nothing, it's just..." her voice trailed off, and then she squirmed, "maybe you should just stop smoking for real. You know, for me."

"Oh, please, no, don't do that. You know I'm weak when it comes to emotional blackmail!" I desperately cried.

"I don't want to blackmail you, Chandler, but..." she trailed off again, and her insecurity started to make me feel something that surpassed nervousness by a full-triple somersault. "Well, I suppose I should just tell you now. Maybe it is the right time, y'know."

"Tell me what?" I asked, taking a final, quick puff of smoke.

"No, no, forget it," she waved her hand dismissively, and I coughed out an ironic laugh.

"No, you're not doing that to me," I shook my head resolutely. "What right time? Now you definitely have to tell me."

"Okay, the thing is..." she trailed off once again, Jesus Christ Almighty, rid me of this punishment, "Chandler, I'm pregnant."

And my cigarette effectively abandoned my fingers. This is not something I clearly remember happening, but when I later searched for it in my hands, it just wasn't there anymore. I don't remember much else from these pathetic seconds, but I recall my heart, liver, and small intestine abruptly piling up in my throat, and it's possible I heavily went through the obvious benefits of celibacy, too. My tongue seemed to have been stuck in place, my whole body had tensed, and I seriously thought I was going to pass out, since an annoying hiss rang loudly in my ears.

But then, powerful laughter made my eardrum vibrate.

Wait a minute, that didn't sound right. Laughter? I must've been making things up. Oh, but no, I was sure it was laughter. _But why would I be laughing when my whole life had just ended?_ I wondered silently to myself. I looked down, and found out it wasn't coming from me.

"Oh, my God, Chandler!" Monica said, laughing. "You look like you're about to die, I was just joking!"

What came next was a succession of blank stares and some furious blinking that lasted longer than any respectable person would like to admit.

"Jo- Joking?" I asked, my hand reflexively clasped to my chest.

"Yeah, I'm sorry!" she apologized, but she'd made it sound so breezy, her apology had somehow stopped being sincere halfway through the execution. "But look, you stopped smoking so, in a way, it worked!"

This is when my stare stopped being so blank, my blinking stopped being so furious, and I was left only with the astonishment and anger that the worst joke ever pulled had graced me with. Mind me, I cursed a lot.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Monica!" my muscles finally unlocked, and I started pacing around the empty court like an insane individual while repeatedly pushing both hands through my hair. "You don't joke about that shit, Monica. You just don't!"

"But why not?" she said, and the most sarcastic scoff the world has ever witnessed poured out of me.

"What do you mean, 'why not?'" I scoffed again. "Because it's not fucking funny!"

"Okay, look. First of all, calm down - you're probably right," she calmly uttered the understatement of the century, and I paced around some more. "But seriously, you should've seen your face. You know, maybe you'd be laughing now if you had!"

"I don't need to see my face, Monica. I just lived it!" I exclaimed, and she started laughing again. This forced me to stop pacing back and forth, because she wasn't laughing softly, no. It was more like hysterical, hyena laughs that she tried to repress with both hands to no avail.

"I'm sorry, I can't-" she continued laughing, her eyes filling with happy tears. "I don't know what's gotten into me, I'm sorry!" she said, and then blabbered something in a language unknown to human beings, so more laughter ensued. It came to a point where, after she'd been laughing alone for nearly a minute, it began to feel incredibly infectious, so almost all the anger drained out of my body and I ended up letting out a small chuckle, too. Damn. "Hah, you laughed too!"

I pursed my lips together, covered my mouth with my knuckles. "No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did!" she said, accusing me with her finger. "You laughed, you did!"

"Okay, yeah, maybe I did. But I'm still mad, okay?" I said around a laugh, and she nodded knowingly, taking deep breaths and trying to force her laughter to die down.

"But now seriously, I'm really sorry," she said after a beat, wiping her eyes. "That was not my wisest moment, I'll admit it."

"It might be your dumbest moment, in fact."

"Yeah, you're probably right..." she carefully bit her lower lip, and I chewed the insides of my cheeks. "Forgive me?" she begged, and I took on a pondering air, trying to unsuccessfully keep the suspense going.

"Yeah, sure," I said as my expression changed to a smile. "I mean, who am I trying to fool?"

"I'm not complaining, but you're a softie, you know," she said, adorably skipping towards me and resting her hands on the nape of my neck, playing with the hair there.

"So I've been told, yeah," I nodded, wrapping my arms around her waist. "But you've actually ruined me, y'know. Before I met you, I swear, I randomly punched people on the street just because I felt like it," I joked, and then she laughed. The internal fulfilment I felt every time she laughed at something I'd said is something I find, still to this day, indescribable.

"You still wanna play?" she asked, like there'd been any moment today where I'd wished to do that. "I mean, we can do whatever you want, I don't care."

"No, sure, we can play for a while," I nodded, grinning like an imbecile. I'm a weak, weak man, but you probably know that already.

"Cool," she retreated from my arms, walking towards the ball she'd dramatically dropped when she'd temporarily swapped bodies with the main character of a soap opera, "but don't hate me when I kick your ass, huh?"

"Please, let's not get overly intense, okay?" I pleaded, trying to keep the physical activity to a minimum.

"I'm not intense, baby, I was born this good!" she gloated, bouncing the ball on the floor like some quasi-professional player. I was seriously starting to get a little scared.

"Alright, Michael Jordan, settle down," I said around a skeptical laugh, rolling up my jacket's sleeves.

"The fact that we're only two people might be a problem. So, we could just try shots for now," she said, without waiting for my approval, positioning herself. "I'll start, if you don't mind."

"Sure, go ahead," I waved my hand at her, glad that my pending humiliation would get delayed by a few moments. She arched her back, chewing on her lip, and when the ball had just left her hands, I already knew she'd make a clean shot. It was _that_ perfect. Half a second after I'd already known, the ball went through the net with ease. It wasn't that big of a surprise, though, since she probably thought her dignity, pride, and entire existence were at stake.

"I told you I was good," she chuckled, passing me the ball. "You try now."

"Yeah, whatever," I dismissively said, trying to look nonchalant in order to diminish the humiliation I'd probably suffer. What happened next caught us both by surprise: even though my technique was more than deficient, I actually made the shot, and the ball went through the net with a wonderful _swoosh_ sound that made my insides tingle with pure pride. I raised my arms vigorously, jumped like a man on ecstasy, and screamed triumphantly into the air. Okay, so my nonchalance lasted 7 unforgettable seconds.

"Nice shot!" she excitedly said, sending a pair of thumbs up my way. "But don't get too excited, your luck will run out eventually," she said, picking the ball off the ground. This might sound crazy after what she'd said, but I found Competitive Monica somewhat endearing, and completely amusing.

Anyway, in my opinion, most of what happened after that is pretty much unremarkable: we kept this little back and forth game of ours going for some time, and while she made most of her shots, I simply didn't. I soon grew tired of being shamed, and while my lack of luck (or skills) was palpable, there were no words within the English language to describe the smug smile she was now sporting.

"Watch and weep, Bing. I'm about to destroy you for like the seventh time today!" she said, spinning the ball in her hands.

Okay, that was too much, event for a tolerant fellow like me. What could I possibly have left? Not my dignity, I was sure, but I still had my height. The difference between us was not astounding, but there were times when she looked minute in comparison, so it was worth a try. That's why when the ball was about to leave her fingers, I ran and tried to block her shot with everything I had - I succeeded.

A loud _thump_ echoed in the entire empty park, and it simultaneously drained every bit of happiness Monica'd felt up until now. I rushed to get a hold of the ball before she did, but then found out that no such efforts were required, since she just stayed unmoving in place, her smug smile more than defunct now.

"Watch and weep, Geller!" I triumphantly laughed, and she swallowed thickly. It was nice to see our roles from before reversed, but I started to feel a little bad, so I hesitated for a second, "Hey, you okay?"

"That was not funny, give me the ball," she returned to earth, trying to take it from my hands.

"No, I'm sorry, can't do," I stifled another laugh, hiding the ball behind my back.

"Come on now, Chandler. Play by the rules," she indignantly said, with a sense of entitlement.

"What rules? There are no rules here! Who made the rules?" I teased her, loving this

"Well, those are universal rules. Everybody knows them," she retorted, frustrated. "We take one shot at a time."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about," I shrugged my shoulders, enjoying her frustration more than I'd ever care to admit (at least to her). At that moment, I somehow found the flawed idea of ignoring her completely brilliant, so I turned around, and aimed at the hoop on the other half of the court.

"Oh, you little-!" she screeched loudly, losing every last, little fragment of patience in her body. Just seconds before I could fail miserably, she jumped on me from behind, pulling the hoodie of my jacket over my head, and even though Monica was far from being heavy, the unpredictability of her actions made my legs give way beneath me. The fall was just ridiculous, and I ended up with my face pressed against the concrete, Monica sitting on top of my butt. Things could've been worse, to be honest. The ball rolled away from us, hiding itself under a bush.

"Ow, what are you doing?" I rolled over, trying to lay on my back. "Don't... bully me!"

"_You_ are the one bullying _me_!" she said, proving her statement by hitting me time and again in the arm. It was in a rather girly way, but still, it kind of hurt.

"Oh, come on, I'm just messing around!" Monica glared at me in a way that should've been menacing, but that I found downright endearing. "How can you not see that? You're totally blinded by your competitiveness, Mon."

A twitch of a smile started to form across her lips, and I couldn't help but mirror her expression.

"Yeah, no- I know!" she happily said after a moment's deliberation, even though nobody believed that utterly fake statement.

"Yeah, sure you do!" I repeated, matching her tone. Remember the 'you smartass' smile? Well, here it was again.

"This has been more fun than you expected, right?" she said around a small laugh, playing with the strings of my jacket. "I mean, I know you thought it was a crazy idea at first, but I just wanted to have a little fun with you, is all."

And maybe this was because I was a simple-minded guy, and maybe this was the universe rejecting my celibacy idea, but for the longest three seconds of my life, my attention on its entirety was only focused on the sweetness that surrounded her words, and on how she was sitting on top of me, and on how she was playing with my jacket, and on how I could feel her warm breath against my cool skin, and on how two stupid, thin layers of clothing were the only thing separating us right then.

A non-committal sound came out of me; a word would've been better.

"Fun- yeah, sure," I nervously stumbled over my words.

"As I risk repeating myself," she chuckled softly. "You, sir, are too cute."

"Yeah, you're probably just biased," I chuckled along with her, which then caused a couple of coughs worthy of a dying eighty-year-old man to come out me. Monica looked at me with puppy eyes, and even though she was probably too old to pull that expression off, she did it in a way that could only be considered insanely endearing.

"Please, stop smoking," she pleaded, brushing her thumb against my cheek, and I sighed ruefully.

"But why? It's not like I'm forcing _you_ to do it," I helplessly uttered.

"No, Chandler, c'mon. You know why," she earnestly said, and I think I did.

Time slowed and stilled, and then we both leaned in closer, taking all the time we needed, as if we were magically wired to do it that way. Then we melted into an inappropriate kiss, given how we were in a public space and all, but I no longer cared. This was it - nothing else mattered then, not for those feeble seconds where we just kissed, and where it honestly felt like we were the only two people in the whole world.

Decorum flew out the window, because in that precise instant, it just wasn't about that, not really; it was about how _right_ it felt - how right it felt in my mind, and in my heart, and even in my fingertips, it doesn't matter. They were just sensations, I couldn't make anything of them, at least not then, but during those few seconds where we just sat in the middle of that stranded court, I swear, I felt it everywhere.

Monica pulled apart in the middle of a sigh, pressing her forehead against mine and running her hands through my hair. I gave her a sweet peck on the nose, just because I felt like it. "I will stop," I then whispered into her mouth while my eyes remained closed. "You happy now?"

She smiled at me from ear to ear, and I swear again, the whole world stopped turning.

"Yes."

* * *

A/N: Tired of pointless chapters yet? Well, fear no more. You'll miss them when you find out what I've got planned next. *Evil laughter*

Am I kidding? Who knows.

I'm sorry about the delay, but I've been trying to recover from the severe emotional damage that Me Before You inflicted upon me (RECOMMENDED - if you don't mind having your heart shattered into a million pieces, that is). It took me less than 24 hours to read it, yet I have been crying 3 days over it. It was so heartbreakingly beautiful that I know look at my writing with some sort of disdain. Plus, it's kinda hard to write light-hearted stuff when you're crying over fictional characters. Oh my, Will Traynor, why would you do this to me.

That's not the only reason, though. The other is that when I was almost finished with this, my computer suffered a timely, temporary power outage and no changes were saved. Man, that made me wanna cry, too.

Anyway, please, review!


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: This has taken some time, but I'm back home for the holidays this week (good life, finally!), so I've been way too busy feeding myself properly for the first time in five months (turns out watching Man v. Food like crazy doesn't count as eating). But anyway, you probably don't care about the non-existent eating habits of a broken college student.

But hey, thanks so much for the reviews, people! You guys are so lovely, my fear of disappointing you all is getting more and more patent. (Keep them coming, though - I want more.)

Hah, here we go!

* * *

"Have I told you what happened the other day?" Monica asked when I was finally drifting off to sleep. Even though she seemed distant and unclear at first, when my eyes fluttered open at the sound of her voice, I realized that her face was mere inches away from mine.

I stretched my legs and made a sleepily, non-committal noise in the back of my throat, as my eyelids closed again. The sun had just risen, making its way through the half-closed blinds in her bedroom, and we were both still in bed, with her legs forced in between mine, my arm wrapped around her shoulders, and her head resting below my chin. Needless to say, it'd been a long, long, very long night.

"Well, my downstairs neighbor got arrested, you know, the one with the nerdy glasses but the sexy look," she explained, in a gossipy tone of voice, "and the thing is, it actually looks like he's not coming back, because they've put the apartment up for rent already."

"That's crazy," I managed to utter, showing no kind of interest in the matter. Why Monica thought I'd care about her downstairs neighbor this particular Sunday at 7-8 o'clock in the morning is something that still manages to escape my understanding.

"I know!" she continued, stroking my chest. "And 'cause he looked like such a nice guy, too."

"Did he always wave?" I said with small laugh as my eyes remained shut. Maybe under different circumstances my insecurities would've taken the best of me, but irrational jealousy over an imprisoned man seemed somewhat pointless this early in the morning - an approachable joke sounded more fitting.

"What?" Monica asked, raising her head and not approaching my joke.

"You know, like they always do on the news," I started, my eyes finally snapping open. She didn't seem to be following me, so I tentatively asked, "Like, when they interview the neighbors of a guy that just killed his children and beheaded his wife?"

Monica wrinkled her nose. "What?"

"Yes!" I let out a frustrated bark, momentarily forgetting I'd ever been tired in the first place. "And, of course, all they ever say is, 'He looked so normal and nice, he always waved at me!'"

Monica laughed softly. "They do?"

"Of course!" I said, pressing a hand to my face. When Monica stared at me as if I were talking about events that only took place in parallel universes she didn't have access to, a sigh the size of China escaped my lips. "Anyway, let's move on, please."

"Sure thing, honey, but only as long as you stop talking nonsense," she chuckled, snuggling closer to my neck and planting kisses there. I wasn't about to deny some affection, so I craned my neck to grant her better access.

"Sure thing, Sugar Plump," I agreed, running my hand across her arm. Monica _lurved_ when I called her Sugar Plump.

"Ugh, don't call me that, it's so corny," she groaned, moving to my jawline. I let out a deep breath, squeezing her hand and then letting go. Was I about to receive some morning sex after the night we'd had? Life, I'd underestimated you. "This is nice, isn't it?" she breathed against my skin.

"Are you kidding?" I said while she nibbled on my ear. "I could stay here forever!"

The thing is, I probably would have, had my stomach not decided to growl noisily, as if to show me that my desire to eat was a tad stronger. Life, I'd overestimated you. "Are you hungry?" she asked, in case my physiological response was not enough proof.

"Not really," I lied, shaking my head and cupping her face so I could bring our lips together in a kiss that lasted until Monica decided to pull back.

"Hey, you want pancakes?" she offered, and my lips automatically quirked at the corners. Life, you're made up of very difficult decisions.

"That sounds amazing, actually," I said after a beat.

"Wait, no," she quickly said, slapping her head softly and sighing, "I'm out of pancake mix - my roommate is crazy about them, and she eats them at all hours."

This got me thinking: I'd met her roommate a total of four times in all the months I'd been dating Monica, but that sentence sounded weird, somehow, since I couldn't picture Monica's roommate being crazy about anything this world had to offer. I decided to let it slide, though. "Don't wo-"

"Wait, wait!" she cut me off mid-sentence, rising triumphantly over me, and clapping her hands excitedly on my chest, which was much more than I could have ever managed this early in the morning. "We could make it ourselves!"

That didn't sound as fun, to be honest. "I don't kn-" I started, making a face, but she cut me off again.

"Yes, yes!" she bounced on the bed, waving her hands around, as if she'd just had a true stroke of inspiration. "Oh, my God, it'll be so much fun! You can help me, and I'll teach you!"

"You sure you don't want cereals? O better yet, toasts?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows. "I think I can make them French, and not in a dirty way or anything." (I couldn't, actually, but I'd watched Kramer Vs. Kramer enough times to trick myself into thinking I could.)

"No, no, no," she answered, getting out of the bed already, picking my shirt off the floor and putting it on. "It's gonna be fun, I swear. I've always wanted to share my cooking wisdom with you!"

She blurred past the door, and just 10 seconds later, I started hearing her shuffling pans and other utensils in the kitchen. I reluctantly got up, getting the inevitable feeling that this was the story of my life in the past few months: she looked so excited about something that it was hard for me to say no. Oh, so hard; impossibly hard. When I stepped into the living room, she was already taking a carton of milk out the fridge.

I rubbed my eyes and went to lean against the counter. "Wow, you're fast."

"Thank you," she said, like it was meant to be a compliment. "Okay, look. We need milk, eggs, sugar, baking powder..." she informed me as she kept pulling different ingredients out of different cabinets, "and flour. That's all."

"Flour, huh?" I said, peering over it. "We could take part in a flour fight, y'know, like in the movies," I said, although she looked like she did not know. "Now, _that_ sounds like fun," I finished. I don't think she shared this sentiment with me, since she put a hand on my shoulder and a tolerant smile across her face.

"That'd be fun, yes," she said, "but you know what would be even more fun?" I kinda got the feeling, but I shook my head anyway. "You not turning my kitchen into a mess."

"Ah, you're no fun," I took some of it between two fingers, a mischievous smile planted on my face, and I threw it at her.

"Chandler, stop it," she warned me, brushing it off, and my shoulders slumped in total and absolute defeat.

"Just trying to make this experience more enjoyable, but okay," I mournfully said.

"Getting things dirty is not enjoyable!" she admonished me, pointing an angry finger at me. "'Kay?"

A big chunk of me wanted to tell her to stop being so uptight, but an even bigger - gigantic, if you may - part of me didn't want her to break up with me. I hope you can see where my problem lay. "All right, lesson learned," I said, raising the palms of my hands. "Now let's make pancakes, please?"

"Yes, let's mix the ingredients," she said, her excitement coming back by the second. "But you gotta pay close attention, okay?" she asked, and I nodded, because what else could I do.

This is the part of the story where Monica started throwing all kinds of different ingredients into a bowl, narrating out loud every little thing she was doing, and expecting me to take mental notes of it all, but where I started pondering over the mysterious ending of The Shining, which I'd seen for the first time the week before. I was shuffling through different theories about how Jack Nicholson's presence was possible in that final picture - time-travelling? aliens? really good plastic surgery? - when Monica's roommate came out of her bedroom, a depressing sigh escaping her lips.

"Hi..." she said around another sigh, her name totally lost on me.

"Hi," we responded in unison, and I suddenly became very aware that I was standing in the middle of her kitchen clad in nothing but my underwear. I crossed my arms at the speed of light, as if covering my nipples made my nudism better.

"Remember to buy the thing," Monica cryptically said to her.

Oh, _the thing_. This is of no use to any purpose I might have, but after some persistence on my part, I would later find out with some disappointment that she actually meant tampons. Monica's roommate lifted her finger like it weighed a thousand pounds and then pointed at her head.

"Sure, it's recorded in here," she slowly said. _Be careful that it doesn't die from loneliness_, I thought around an imaginary laugh, suddenly finding kind of scary the fact that I was full of meanness inside. "Anyways..." she said as she tiredly dragged her body towards the front door, and then concluded in the only monotone she knew how to express herself with, "Bye."

"She seems like fun," I pointed out once the coast was clear. I thought maybe the fifth time would be a charm, but she still didn't look like a pancake lover to me. Or a lover of anything, for that matter.

"Okay, I'm done here," Monica said, rubbing her hands together and ignoring me. "Easy, right?"

"Easy cheesy," I lied with a tight smile on my face, as I dipped a finger into the batter and tasted it. Some yummy noises ensued, of course. "Whoa, this is delicious - can't we just eat this instead?"

"Of course not," she said with an expression she often reserved for some of my ludicrous suggestions. "Now come on, we gotta get this show on the road, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," I said with a wave of my hand. Since she repressed a yawn next, I wondered if our lack of sleep had finally taken its toll on her. This put another absurd idea in my head. "Hey, tell you what," I started, brushing some hair out of her face, and Monica looked up at me with shiny eyes, "why don't you go lie down on the couch for a while, and I'll finish this."

She eyed me suspiciously, looking at me like she wanted to burst into boisterous laughter due to such a ridiculous request on my part. "You want me to trust you with this?" she asked, and despite her best efforts, a small laugh slipped out.

"Yeah, c'mon," I took the bowl from her hands. She must've been really tired, because she looked like she was heavily considering my words. "This is the easy part, I'm not that useless."

"Are you sure?" she said. "I mean, you're not gonna set my kitchen on fire, are you?"

"Of course not, c'mon, trust me!" I said, pushing her lightly in the couch's direction. She neither took a step back, nor aggressively snatched the bowl from my hands while hissing things like 'my treasure', so I'm going to jump into conclusions and confirm that she was, indeed, very tired.

Now, this is not something I would've admitted to Monica under any set circumstances, but the truth is I'd never cooked anything before in my life. I was not bone-dead stupid so, for example, while I got the basic idea on how to properly fry an egg, I'd just never put it into practice. (This might explain why I witnessed with a baffled expression how my first three pancakes came out totally and inexplicably burned.) Anyway, now that we're clear on this, everything went as follows: one trip to put some clothes on, a couple of small, minute casualties, and twelve pancakes that were luckily not burned.

After that, I was finally done, so I went to kneel besides her resting body on the couch. She looked insanely peaceful, but I thought of my pancakes as some sort of work of art that needed to be tasted by the world. "Ma'am, Chef Chandler has finished," I whispered in her ear to wake her, and Monica stirred, her eyes fluttering open.

"Yeah?" she whispered back, putting her arms around my neck and pulling me closer. "I don't think I believe you."

"Well, you better believe me, darling, 'cause it's true," I said, and then gave her an Eskimo kiss. It might - and does actually - sound corny, but it was just what I wanted to do right at that moment, so I did.

Monica giggled. "Okay, this I have to see."

"Alright, great!" I excitedly pulled apart, hopping to the kitchen. Once we'd both stepped a foot into kitchen territory, I stretched my arms in the air, and then said in a singsong voice, "Ta-da!"

(I thought that sounded kind of cute, but maybe, after all, it simply wasn't, since Monica decided not to join my excitement party.)

"You okay?" I asked after a few seconds of silence, nervously fiddling with the bottom of my t-shirt.

"What is this?!" Monica responded, pulling a hand to her chest.

I cluelessly looked around me. "This is pancakes?"

"Chandler, why does it look like a tornado hit my kitchen?" she insisted, her hand unmoving.

"Oh, _that_," I waved my hand dismissively, like it was no big deal. "I accidentally knocked over the batter a couple of times," I explained, and then wiggled my fingers over the plate full of pancakes, like it was a magic trick, "but look how pretty!"

"Oh, my God, Chandler," she said, and then swallowed thickly, like she was actually indisposed. "You clumsy idiot, you have to clean that up."

"Yeah, sure," I said, trying to encourage her, which seemed to be an almost impossible task, "but let's eat my pancakes first!"

"No," she shook her head furiously, not moved at all by my excitement. "Clean it up first."

I considered this, but I wasn't really fond of the idea. "Okay..." I said, and then started to chuckle nervously. "Well, then- so I..." I stammered, carrying on with my nervous chuckle, and beginning to flail my limbs in the air in a peculiar manner and walking backwards in the door's direction. "Anyway, so thanks for having me over!"

I then fled to the front door (no shoes on), and she threw a desperate _'stop!'_ at me, before skillfully jumping on my back to prevent me from leaving. We struggled for a few seconds, and I seriously don't know how things turned from semi-serious to not-serious-at-all in the middle of such a ridiculous wrestle, but I ended up with my back resting against the front door, her body pressed close to mine, both of us laughing hysterically at such an absurd situation.

"You're such a mess, I hate you!" she said, taking my face in her hands and kissing me. This, I guessed, was a way to prove her statement right. When she pulled back, she looked at me so intensely, I almost feared she was going to hypnotize me. "God, I don't hate you, I l-" I don't know what my face did here, but it must've been enough to make her consider her words. "I like you," she rephrased, as best as she could, and then concluded, "A lot."

Okay, that was awkward, and I'm not one to recognize awkwardness easily.

I must point out that this made me feel beyond bad and sad_, _all at the same time, but I was afraid of admitting, and I was afraid of things changing, and I was afraid of things ending, and because of this, she was now holding back things she wanted to say out loud and it was all my fault. I was such a mess, indeed.

"I like you too," I nodded in a low voice, swallowing thickly.

She nodded too, and this is when I realized that my heart had started hammering against my ribcage violently. I don't know if she could actually feel it through all those layers of clothing, but when her lips pulled into a twitch of a smile, the sadness beneath it was so evident it literally made my chest hurt. (This is a condition that went on for the next few months to the point of heavily considering a visit to the hospital, but I'm getting ahead of myself with this.)

After some awkward seconds, she withdrew from my touch slowly without saying a single word, going back to the kitchen and sitting down at the table, fixing herself one of my pancakes as she started to eat, putting off momentarily the cleaning that her kitchen, I'll admit, desperately needed.

* * *

A/N: These Americans and their fear of the L-bomb, amiright?


	9. Chapter 9

"No," someone indignantly fussed from the distance, "you have to keep the overall mixture at a low temperature _once_ you've mixed in the egg yolk."

Only ten minutes had passed since I'd first set foot in Monica's culinary school, but they'd been more than enough to hear innumerable variations of this same conversation. The truth is, all these people talked so passionately about food, waving their limbs around wildly, that it led me to believe that their lives solely revolved around it. (Which, in hindsight, didn't sound that bad, to be honest.)

Anyhow, as interesting as this might sound, the real, real truth is that I'd grown a little tired of waiting for Monica to come out of her class, like she'd asked me the day before, so we could go someplace else together. I sighed, and surveyed the horizon, and turned, and then I simply leaned against a pillar near the entrance for almost five more minutes. But no, nothing.

I sighed some more, checking my watch, and that's when I felt someone touching my arm affectionately. I spun around, silently praying for her to be standing there, and my prayers must've been heard, because there she was at last, flashing me with a broad smile, and taking my face in her hands so she could kiss me hello.

"Hi, honey," she cooed after she'd properly kissed me. You've got to get your priorities right, and I felt blissfully happy with hers. "How are you?"

"Great," I said, my eyes crinkling in a smile. Supreme lateness? Upset? Me? I don't think I remembered that. "Even better now."

"Hello, Chandler," Monica's roommate cut in then, and I found her standing right in front of me. I don't want to be mean, but since her presence seemed to be as unnoticeable as her attitude, I don't feel like I have much of a choice. Her name was still a mystery, too, even though she was fully aware of mine.

"Hey," I gave her a nod while my smile still remained, casually draping an arm over Monica's shoulders.

"You know, Piper's thinking of moving back to California next year," Monica informed me out of nowhere, and Piper nodded knowingly. Oh, Piper. I hadn't pegged her as a Piper, but sure, I'll take it. I made a mental note to myself so I could remember next time, in case there ever was one. "So who knows, maybe I'll have to go hunting for a new roommate in the not-so-distant future!"

"Hah, I guess that's great, Piper," I said, with a ridiculous emphasis on her name. "I mean, whatever makes you happy."

"Yeah, it's mental, I know, but..." trailed off Piper with a shrug, leaving her sentence open-ended. (Too much effort, maybe.) Then, she clicked her tongue momentarily, as if she were expecting me to jump in and finish it for her. When I didn't contribute, she said, "Well, yeah, y'know."

"Oh, okay," I said out of a lack of options. What a peculiar character, this Piper. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that she was an actual human being with ambitions of her own and stuff like that.

"Anyways, really gotta go," she said then, with a wave of her hand, and a lazy smile on her face.

"Okay, see you later, Pipes," Monica said while 'Pipes' walked away, both of us waving back. A beat later, Monica added, positioning herself in front of me, "Anyway, do you have any plans for tonight?"

"No, why?" I said while she reached into her back pocket, taking out a crumpled piece of paper. "You finally thought of something fun for a boring, depressing Friday night like the one that lies ahead?"

"Well, maybe," she absentmindedly said, smoothing it out against what I'd come to denominate as_ my_ pillar. "Do you know Steven?"

"I don't think so, no," I shook my head, and she suddenly, dramatically let her arms fall away at her sides.

"You don't?" she asked, looking at me as if I'd committed some kind of crime. "Of course you do, Chandler. The guy with the gap in his teeth!" Monica pointed at her front teeth, as if this made it more true.

I laughed softly, patting the back of her head. "Doesn't ring a bell, sorry."

"Nah, I really think you do," she tilted her head, narrowing her eyes, before flipping her hand dismissively a beat afterwards. "But anyway, doesn't matter. The thing is, turns out he's in a band, and they have a gig tonight, apparently. He said he'd be forever grateful if we both went..." she said, and then her eyes widened suddenly, her hand swatting at my arm. "See? Why would he tell me that if you don't know each other?"

Hundreds of possibilities rushed through my head, but I decided to put the matter to rest by letting it go.

"Let me see that," I said, taking the paper from her hands. The name was 'Vicious Cycle' (unoriginal), and it was written in capital, red, tacky letters. Not a good start. Then, a picture of four gentlemen in bicycles (around my age, only much trendier, wearing chain wallets and everything) could be seen. I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't think this was it. "Whoa, what is he, like one of those skaters or something?"

"I don't know him that well, but it looks like it," Monica shrugged, peering over my arm so she could take a look at the paper, too.

"I thought those abounded in California or, y'know, the West Coast area in general, places like that..." I said, and then clicked my fingers. "Hey, maybe he knows Piper."

"Hello?" Monica said this like I was some kind of idiot, and, for a moment, I almost said hello back and proved her right. "Of course he does, Chandler - that's how I met him. They go a long, long way back, actually."

"Oh, I get you," I smirked, touching my nose. "Pipes is like, y'know, _sweet_ on the gap-toothed man, huh?"

"Well, they have some weird thing going on," Monica said. "But she fixed him with the death stare when he invited me, so maybe that's over now."

I highly doubted the 'death stare' part, but whatever.

"Good to know," I honestly said, for some weird reason, and then waved the paper. "But I'm not gonna lie to you; this doesn't sound very promising," I wrinkled my nose. "And the name sounds kinda effortless too."

"Really?" Monica frowned, grabbing the wrinkled paper, and folding it into neatly fourths. "I thought it was clever."

"Jeez, I can't believe I'm dating a person that thinks 'Vicious Cycle' is a clever name," I said, tongue-in-cheek, while she slid the paper into her front pocket. "Centuries and centuries of people exploiting that name. I think it's lost any kind of charm by now."

"Well, okay. But I can't believe I'm dating a person that thinks 'Vicious Cycle' is not a clever name, either," she said, also tongue-in-cheek, I think. "And even if the name was awful, let me tell you: he still became like ten times more interesting."

More tongue-in-cheek? I hoped so.

"Steven? Really? The bicycle man in love with the dullest woman on the face of the earth?" I said with a small laugh, pulling her closer to me. "Well, well, well, you're just a little bit predictable, aren't ya?"

A dramatic roll of eyes. "You wanna go or not?"

"Sure, why not," I said, starting towards the main door. "I'm sure Steven with the gap in his teeth will appreciate it."

* * *

Funnily enough, I did know Steven with the Gap in his Teeth. At first, I could only think about his pale, freckled face, and the fact that he seemed to be perpetually stuck in a black and white, worn-out trucker hat. That felt awfully familiar to me, somehow, so I just _had_ to know him. I mean, believe it or not, I didn't know that many people who were perennially glued to a fashion accessory.

It took me some time, but then I finally remembered, even if it turned out to be something quite unexpected: we'd crossed paths once, when he was sneaking out of Piper's bedroom shirtless, with a hickey on his chest, and most of his clothes in his arms (his hat was on, I must add). I was pouring myself a cup of coffee, and he gave me the most awkward nod of acknowledgment ever witnessed, before carefully closing the front door behind him.

What a meet cute.

Their gig was not much of a gig, though, as it was playing one song onstage and then making way for the next band. The song they inexplicably decided to play was interesting, for lack of a better word, as it was called, and I'm totally serious, 'The Shower Song', which I thought was mistitled, since I would never, ever sing it in the shower, given how it also included a number of obscenities that, at one point, became kind of unnecessary.

That said, Monica felt the thrill of being friends with a lesser-known musician in her bones, and literally rode my back the entire time. She shook, and moved, and hollered all the way through it, and when they surpassed the 4 minute barrier, I suspected they were stretching their moment of glory a little bit too much, although Monica didn't seem to notice. Of course, I was the one carrying someone else's weight, so that might've had something to do with it.

When they finally finished, the singer angrily threw the mic on the ground (for no apparent reason), the guitarist jumped his way to the bar immediately, and Steven got a little carried away and threw his drum sticks to the audience, hitting someone in the face. The bass player got left behind, cleaning after the mess they'd made.

Apparently, not plenty of people were there to see him, so Steven with the Gap in his Teeth got overly excited by our visit; he thanked us many times, paid for our drinks, and then graced me for over thirty minutes with the cultural history of the Punk Rock movement, as if I had any interest in it. Despite this, he ended up being a really nice guy, his persistence on wearing a hat indoors at all times aside.

Now, the bar. I don't know what I could say about it, except that it was kind of ratty and purposeless, that it held inside more attendees than it could allow, and that it rapidly filled with smoke (smoke!), much to my chagrin. It was badly lit, had a stage on one side, a bar filled with bar stools on the other, a couple of booths in a corner, the restrooms in another, and it was definitely too crowded for my taste.

"You guys are kinda adorable, dude. I'm jealous," Steven had drunkenly said - as a compliment, I assume - before being called out by one of his band mates (I think it was the furious singer) demanding him to help load their instruments in a van. He said he'd be back in a couple of minutes, but truth be told, I haven't seen him since.

He patted my back, kissed Monica's cheek (oh), and then I watched him from my bar stool as he left, readjusting his hat on the way out and flashing me with some strands of shiny ginger hair. "Did you hear that? He said we were adorable!" Monica giggled, jumping on my lap and sliding one arm over my shoulders. I nodded, taking a sip of my beer.

This is when I tell you that Monica proved to be a lightweight, and that after two beers got a little tipsy. She didn't slurred her words or tripped over her own two feet, but some might say she acted happier than usual, and found most uninteresting things to be, well, interesting.

"Oh, you were right in the end, by the way," I said, pecking her on the cheek. "This has been fun."

"It's been _a lot_ of fun!" she exclaimed in my ear, the place suddenly falling silent.

"Not quality wise, though. Some of these bands have been torture," I said, and Monica reluctantly nodded. More unusual quietness followed.

Fortunately, we were about to find out that one of the bands was going to use their limited time to play a cover of 'Here, There, and Everywhere' by The Beatles. It contrasted greatly with everything all the other bands had been playing up until this point (mostly crap), but the crowd accepted the song with lots of cheering, suddenly in the mood for some mellowness.

Monica's head raised by the sound of it, and if she were a dog her ears would've been sticking out for sure. After a couple of seconds where I didn't know what she was thinking, she grabbed my hand and tugged me away from my bar stool, closer to the stage. She didn't let go when we got there, and while she looked up at the stage, I just looked down at her. Thirty seconds in, she said, smiling, "They sound awesome, don't you think?"

"They do, yeah," I absentmindedly nodded, because I wasn't really paying attention to them. This might sound silly, but it was hard to concentrate when she was standing on tiptoes so close to me, holding my hand and swaying lightly, the light angled just right on her, with her disheveled hair piled in a messy bun, and her make-up smeared by the night.

I swear, I don't think she'd ever looked more beautiful.

"What?" Monica asked over the music when my stare had become too obvious, tucking one loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"Nothing, it's just..." I shrugged my shoulders, breaking this long stare. "Ah, it's nothing."

"Chandler, c'mon," she said, playfully poking me in the side. "What?"

"Well, you're beautiful," I blurted out then, matter of factly, and when she broke into a grin too wonderful for words to describe it, I don't know what came over me, but I just went all in and kissed her. And she kissed me back, of course. And we seriously kissed for as long as these Beatles wannabes played what I found out was one of Monica's favorite songs, those wonderful words engulfing us, and probably giving meaning to my actions, even if I was too dumb and she was too naïve to realize that at the time.

Oh my, what a kiss. This kiss, this particular, slow, time-stopping kiss, and the memory of it, too, still so clear in my mind - the bitter taste of beer that had turned sweet by the time her lips had met mine; her hands raking through my hair, my fingers cupping her face; sweaty people bumping into us, loud music blaring in our ears, unpleasant smoke filling our nostrils, but honestly, I think by then we'd just stopped caring about the outside world. Monica laughed sweetly afterwards, too, burying her head in my chest, the color in her cheeks rising.

But anyway, these were just little, unimportant yet important details that plagued my mind when I thought about The Kiss, since I'm almost completely sure I remember anything of those two and a half minutes where they just played, and played, and we just kissed, and kissed. And it was pretty much incredible.

* * *

At 3 a.m. on the nose, whoever owned this cave of a bar grew tired of us all, and announced closing time. Some animal-like people grunted loudly and refused to go, so we made our way outside immediately to secure our safety, even though we didn't feel ready to go home just yet, either. The difference was that we were a little bit civilized, I suppose.

So Monica sat on a low window ledge on the façade of the building, and I stood between her legs, which she had linked around my back. Her arms were around me, too, trying to shield me from the almost summer-y cold breeze, given how she'd left her jacket at home (on purpose, should I add), and had taken mine when the atmosphere had grown colder. It was too big for her, no doubt, but she looked incredibly cute in it, and that was enough for me not to want my jacket back.

We just stood there, in that position for over thirty minutes in complete silence, as we witnessed people periodically leaving the building. It hadn't emptied out yet, so someone would yell in a slur every other three minutes, as they made their way out, disturbing our peace.

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask you something: are you gonna go back home for the summer?" Monica asked in a whisper after a while, since it seemed like this late at night, you either shout over your possibilities, or whisper in a low voice as if not to disturb anyone else. I slowly nodded against her chest, even though I hadn't truly realized that summer break was just three weeks away from us, hence I hadn't thought about what I was going to do. "Yeah, me too."

And then, more silence. I loved what I thought were comfortable silences, having been scared all my life of uncomfortable ones. Plus, nobody had exited the bar shouting or making a scene, so everything had been really quiet for more than five minutes, to the point that the slow movement of Monica's chest - up and down, up and down - plus the fact that she'd been gently running her hands through my hair had almost lulled me to sleep. When everything stopped a moment later, her chest started to move erratically, and one of her hands abandoned my hair and went to her face, I pulled back to look at her.

"Hey, are you crying?" I foolishly asked, because she obviously was.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," she laughed softly, wiping her eyes. I, on the other hand, squirmed. "I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm gonna blame it on the alcohol," she said, like two beers in five hours filled with non-professional musicians were a lot. "God, this is so unlike me, sorry."

"Hey, but don't cry, please," I said in a pleading tone of voice, running my thumb across her cheek. Needless to say, crying people make me very uncomfortable. "Why are you crying?"

"This might sound stupid, but it's because I'm gonna miss you," she said, letting her hand rest against the nape of my neck, where she could probably feel against her fingertips the goosebumps she was evoking. "Damn, I'm gonna miss you a lot - in case you haven't noticed, I've been spending most of my days with you," she continued. Then, a sob, and tears that kept falling. "I mean, some days we wake up together, we eat together, we watch TV together, we go to sleep together. Hell, we've even showered together."

We were sort of clingy, now that she pointed it out, but I smiled briefly at the memory anyway, of course. It didn't last long, though, so then I tried to think of something that would, somehow, make things better. "No, I know, and I'm gonna miss you too, Mon. But look, we've been apart before. I mean, there was Christmas break, and Easter, Thanksgiving..." I tried to give her one of my best smiles, and probably failed miserably. "You survived then, didn't ya?"

"I know that, but it doesn't make the fact that I'm gonna miss you any less true," she sniffled, tightening her legs around my back, and wiping her eyes again. More tears. "God, I'm so sorry."

"Hey, come on, everything's gonna be okay," I desperately said, trailing little kisses along her tear-stained face, trying to kiss her tears away or something like that, her salty tears wetting my lips. I seriously didn't know what to do, but when she pulled me into a hug and nodded, I let myself relax a bit, and I hugged her back. The smell of my own jacket surrounded me; I don't know how she did it, but while it should've smelled of me, or even of smoke, it only smelled of her.

"Can I ask you something?" she slowly said after some hesitation, and I nodded against her chest once again. She just drew in a long breath next, so I pulled back and stared into her eyes; bleary, honest, blue, earnestly asking me something I didn't even know yet. "Do you love me?"

"What?" I asked, because in case you haven't noticed yet, when it comes to certain things, I'm irremediably dense. Right then, a guy carrying a drunken, practically passed out girl burst through the door - yelling, of course -, and I looked at them for a second, looking for some distraction, even though they disappeared into the night not long after. Monica kept her eyes on me, holding her breath.

"Because _I_ do. I love you so much. I... Well, I've fallen in love with you, and I don't see the point in pretending otherwise anymore," she admitted when I didn't say anything. Time pretty much slowed at this point, and so did my brain, my thoughts completely muddled together. She talked some more then, giving me praise I probably didn't deserve, and describing sleepless nights filled with wonder and excitement, and marvelous days filled with laughter and pretty much anything good you can imagine. A chill ran up my spine as I heard this, tears kept streaming down her face, and for a brief moment, I think I felt loved, even if I didn't know how to confirm this. When that feeling disappeared, though, I just felt scared. "...and when the thought that we might not be on the same page crosses my mind, it really kills me inside," she carried on, and God, she said it so sad, it killed me inside, too. "So, I just wanna know what your answer is to that."

An answer. It sounded so simple, really, but I searched for it in her eyes, and I searched for it in my brain, and then I looked up at the starless night and thought for a split second. And I know I should've thought about those days and nights she had just described, because I think I would've known then, but instead I just thought about the answer, and when I didn't know what it was, I simply said, "I don't know."

And then Monica's face really fell, even though she'd been crying for over ten minutes beforehand. People on the other side of the world probably knew, and yet I didn't. God, what a messed up idiot. "You don't know..." she repeated my words, letting out a hollow laugh. "Well, that's never a good thing, isn't it?"

"I don't know," this answer came into play once more. How was I supposed to know, anyway? Love had always been so alien to me; I didn't even know what it felt like. Right before she'd come crashing into my world, I had no idea caring so much about someone else was even remotely possible, and fuck, even if it's no excuse, it scared me to death.

"Okay, well, I-... at least now I know, y'know," she finally said, and another rebellious tear made its way down her cheek until she quickly, angrily wiped it away. "Jesus, what's wrong with me?"

"Mon-" I hesitantly started, before she interrupted me by jumping off the ledge, holding up a hand.

"Shut up, please. I just wanna go home," she said, walking away from me already. Towards home, I suppose.

"No, wait, Mon. Wait, please," I helplessly tried, my own voice wavering, closing my fingers around her wrist and stopping her. "Please, don't go."

"God, you're just so fucking stupid," she snapped, letting fly a rare expletive in her vocabulary, and freeing herself from my grip in one quick motion. "You've got answers for everything, but I ask you a simple question and you don't know what to say," she concluded, her face pinched in both anger and sadness.

"And you don't think I know that? I do, but..." I trailed off, shuffling through some very lame responses, and pushing a hand through my hair in the meantime. "This is overwhelming to me, you gotta understand that. And fuck, I just don't know anything. I mean, we were having fun one second, and then you were crying the next, and I dunno, we are incredibly young to be giving so much meaning to that stuff, too, don't you think?"

"Okay, so..." she swallowed, "according to you, when are people allowed to develop feelings? Just tell me, and I'll call you then, y'know," she scoffed loudly. She also made a good point, and I simply did not. Sarcasm really hurt when it was directed at you, by the way. "Look, if you don't know, then you probably just don't," she was trying to look tough now as she said this, I know that, but her voice broke at the end anyway, and truth be told, so did my heart. "And listen, at least you don't have to worry about it anymore, alright?"

I sighed ruefully. "Monica, please-"

"I just wanna be alone for a while, okay? Can't you give me that?" she interrupted me again. A small part of me felt relieved that she had, since I seemed to start all my sentences without any idea on how to finish them. "I just need to- God, I don't even know what I need. I just wanna get out of here."

I opened my mouth then, because I didn't want her to go, that much I knew, but no fucking sound came out. And so she turned on her heels, and then walked away from me, shouldering her way through the group of people that had just come out of the bar, some of them whistling after her before deciding it was probably too late to even bother. And then she simply disappeared into the night, just like we'd watched pretty much everybody else do tonight.

And God, while I watched her go, with my jacket on and her supressed sobs, my chest started to hurt, and my eyes started to burn, and there were a million things I thought I should've said, but I couldn't get any of them straight in my head. And so I just stood there, feeling like I was throwing it all away because I was not brave enough to take whatever risks were necessary.

I've come to terms already with the fact that humans are a very peculiar kind; selfish, selfless, broken, and even more broken. We constantly complain about life when it's the greatest thing that will ever happen to us, and we throw away almost immaculate relationships because we're too afraid. But even so, what remains is that she'd just opened up her heart to me, and here I was, tearing it apart. Oh, and doing a fantastic job at it, by the way.

How fascinating it was that our first fight also seemed to be the last.

* * *

A/N: I'm not-... I- I-... Well, I was gonna say something like "please, don't hate me," but maybe I'm asking for too much. Please, don't insult me!

But hey, above all, please review. And listen to those Beatle fellas, they're apparently very good.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I've been a little busy with life, uni, soccer (hala Madrid), and wisdom teeth (fun fact: in Spain they're called judgment teeth, which paints them in a more appropriate, apocalyptic light), but anyway, I finally found some time, and so a new chapter is here at last.

And thank you, thank you, and a thousand times thank you for getting me to 100 reviews. Not even in my wildest (in a sexless way) dreams did I imagine getting there with this story, but you're all so great and sweet and kind, and have proved me totally wrong, and I love you all for it. You're the best, seriously.

Anyway, here goes the 10th chapter, which was lots of fun to write. Enjoy!

* * *

Another long _beep_, and then another long nothing._  
_

I didn't fail to notice that they both sounded incredibly wobbly in my ears, even if nothing shouldn't sound like anything, and that those elongated, middle _e's_ seemed to be stretching themselves to infinity, sounding impossibly weird, even to someone in my condition.

I shook my head, trying to clear it a little, and then I leaned against the payphone I was using, giving it a semi-hug. The fact that its smell was quite terrifying is not debatable, but my impaired mind was impaired to the point that I could hardly see, let alone care, and I definitely needed to lean on something that would prevent me from falling to the floor.

Another wavering _beep_ that should've given me hope came in, but this one seemed to finish as soon as it had started.

"If this one doesn't go, you'll have to wait till tomorrow morning, understood?" said the man standing in the room with me, as if that statement was not bloodcurdlingly horrifying, and had not caused my stomach to tie itself into a million little knots.

"Please, pick up, pick up, please, pick up..." I murmured to myself with my eyes closed, as I impatiently drummed my fingers on the outrageously dirty payphone. I heaved a sigh, feeling like this was a losing battle I was just refusing to believe I'd lost, except that when I was about to take my ear off the receiver, the dial tone got cut off, and a sleepy voice filled the silence on both ends of the line.

"Yeah," she said, without even bothering to make it into a question. I could almost see her sleepily rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, adorably stifling a yawn, and the familiarity of all this stung me deeply in the chest, and it stung me deeply in the mind.

I raised my head and cleared my throat. I fought the strong urge to hang up. The whole week had gone with me calling her, and her ignoring me, and even then I didn't even know what I was going to say if she ever picked up, which she didn't, and so that left me with a question I could only answer right in this moment, and that precise question was: what could I possibly say _now_?

"Someone there?" she asked again, probably assuming that a throat-clearing pervert was on the other side of the line, and I figured being straightforward was the right thing to do, if only because it's not like I had any other options.

"I need your help," I blurted, shortly, in what I perceived as the most confident voice ever, even though the alcohol was probably deceiving me.

I could hear movement, then silence, and then, "Chandler?"

This elicited a shameful nod from me, until I realized that people can't see through their phones. "Yes," I said then, taking a deep breath, and trying to delay my confession forever, even if my time was running out and therefore wasn't the wisest thing to do. "It's possible I might be in jail?"

I tried to put it into a question, which perfectly fitted into drunken logic of softening a blow, but still, I just knew she winced, and so I winced along with her, because it all sounded so bad it was worth wincing and more. "You what?" she said, much more awake this time. I grimaced again.

"I'm so sorry," I began, my speech slurred, which I didn't fail to notice this time, "I don't wanna bother you, Monica. I swear I don't, but I- I didn't know who to call, and your number was the only one that came to mind," I sighed, and then continued, "I'm so sorry, seriously. They took me to the station that's not far from your apartment, I think?"

"You're drunk," she pointed out, because it was that obvious, and God, she sounded mad and sad, both at the same time, and I felt a sudden and overwhelming wave of guilt. "And you want me to bail you out."

"I'll pay you back, I swear," I said in a very low voice, like a scared child would to his fuming mother. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, my fucking God," she concluded, and then hung up the phone; quite a legitimate reaction. That annoying _beep_ filled my ears again, only it never stopped this time, and it just went on forever.

I placed the receiver in front of my face, and I looked intently at it, expecting it to give me all the answers I so desperately needed. I pressed my back against the wall and then dramatically slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I buried my head in my arms and then I thought about how this week had gone, 8 long days without Monica, her laugh, her obsessions, her hugs, her kisses, and how it had felt like total torture. I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to be drunk, and I definitely didn't want to call her in the middle of the night so she could save me from it all.

But still, I think the worst part of this situation was that I didn't even know where we stood. I mean, I knew she was going to be even more pissed at me now than she was before. But when I thought about it, I couldn't help but wonder, and I couldn't say if we'd broken up for good, or what I was supposed to do now, or even if I'd done the right thing or the totally wrong one, and oh, the uncertainty was killing me.

"Come on, don't sweat it, kid," the man that had witnessed it all took the phone from my hands, hooking his hand under my arm, and then leading me (well, more like carrying me) to one of the prison cells in the station. "I'd be more worried about the face if I were you. That's gonna hurt like hell tomorrow," he said, taking out his keys. Thank you, another thing to worry about, I thought. I peered inside the cell, and spotted a guy on a bench picking his nose. The police officer handed me a foam cup, supposedly filled with something that should've been coffee, but that looked like dishwater. "Here, drink this."

Yeah, in your dreams, I thought again as he lightly pushed me inside.

"Please, I shouldn't even be here," I cried once I was in, pressing my face between two bars. The cop looked at me like I was the most unoriginal prisoner ever, before shaking his head and leaving me there with my adorable cellmate. "I probably have a concussion or something - my head hurts. I should be in a hospital right now, not here," I shouted after him, stomping my foot in a rictus of agony. The officer left without even looking back, but at least he didn't spin around and told me that my headache was probably the struggle of my brain trying to comprehend its imbecility, which I appreciate.

"Yeah, don't we all think that," my nose-picking, fortysomething cellmate cheerfully said to me, spitting out a genuine tee-hee giggle, and I awkwardly nodded. "But that doesn't mean I didn't go completely berserk at the supermarket today."

"Sure, but I'm telling the truth," I said, pointing at my face and stumbling towards a bench situated as far to this gentleman as possible. I sat down on it, and then laid the foam cup on the floor, where it surely belonged. In retrospect, I know I might've been in the wrong here, but at that moment, the outrage I felt, mixed with the alcohol in blood, totally overshadowed any kind of rational emotion. "I mean, sure, I should've kept my mouth shut, but the guy hit me in the face and he's probably running 'round- he's freely- somewhere running-" I stammered, and put my face in my hands. "Fuck, I don't even know how to speak anymore."

"Blah, blah, blah, boo hoo. I hope you don't mind me saying this, son," this peculiar guy kept ignoring me, making sounds, and babbling, and I lay down carefully on the bench, desperately needing a more horizontal position. "But you reek of marijuana smoke."

"What?" I asked.

"You heard me," he said, with a confident look on his face.

"Alright, dude, but I'm afraid that's you," I answered, tucking one arm under my head and draping the other over my eyes. He started sniffing loudly, as if trying to verify my accusations. He gave me a lopsided, lazy smile next, the one that a stoned person could perfectly pull off.

"Aw, shit, you might be right!" he said with hysterical laughter, slapping his leg with both hands. I felt genuinely frightened. "But hey, don't 'dude' me anymore."

Fortunately, all his chatter didn't prevent me from drifting helplessly in and out of consciousness. Unfortunately, I was still very aware of how he was rambling on to me about something very unimportant, even if I didn't know what it was. I felt stuck between two worlds, and when the one filled with nothingness is the preferred one, it means that things aren't going particularly well.

In any case, the night started on the wrong foot, and I'd be a fool if I tried to deny that. Sulking in my room had become some sort of habit for me, and when Ross came in on the eighth day and saw me, he sighed, and then said something that probably had a couple of insults in it, and an invitation to hang out so I could leave my depressing attitude behind. I'd really like to quote him verbatim, but truth be told, I can't really remember what he said, or even if he said anything at all.

To be fair, Ross was never unpleasant to me after the unofficial breakup. He opted for the easier, neutral position, and never fully blamed me for what had happened, if only because he didn't really know what had happened (I didn't either, if that was any consolation), and honestly, I don't think he really wanted to know, anyway.

So, when after some resistance, I agreed to go out with him, he threw some decent-looking clothes at me, and then dragged me to a gin mill he'd been recommended by some guy he was sure I knew. "Yes, dude! Ronald, with the hairy mole on his face, you sure you don't remember him?" he insisted. I've come to realize that the Gellers were always telling me what or who I remembered, as if that would make it true. Well, I didn't, not really.

Anyhow, we were there for the longest two hours of my life, and Ross made sure to feed me insane amounts of alcohol, which I felt reluctant about at first, but that more than happily accepted later. "I gotta pee," he slurred when we'd hit the second hour, and had lost count of how many rounds we'd drunk, "be bight rack."

I nodded, because I didn't remember how to form words anymore, and I watched him as he struggled his way through the crowd to the bathroom. When I was alone and Ross was no longer there to distract me, I'll admit that things started to get a little weird: a hissing noise started to ring incredibly loud in my ears, and I started to feel somewhat sick. I tried to think of something, anything else that would take my mind out of this, but my brain would not help me, and I started to feel like I was seriously going to pass out, and the main thing that occupied my mind was that I was going to make an idiot of myself, and so I leant forward and pressed my forehead to the wooden bar, and it felt so cool, while my face felt so hot, that I just closed my eyes and stayed in that position until Ross clapped me on the back a moment later. I could've sworn only seconds had passed, but I would've been obviously very wrong, because here he was again, trying to talk coherently.

"Chandler, my man," he leaned on the bar and stared at me. I raised my head because of the articulation of my name, my skin sweaty and my hair sticking up because of it, and then stared right back at him. When he opened his mouth to speak, he burped.

What a pleasant night, this was being.

"Oh, shit, sorry," he said around a laugh, covering his mouth.

"No problem," I answered, squinting at him. He looked positively drunk, and he hadn't ingested half the amount of alcohol I had. That's when I started to worry about how I really looked if he was like that, and well, given how I'd been with my face pressed to a bar for over five minutes, and didn't even remember it, I assumed I didn't look too good either.

"Anyway, on my way to the bathroom, I called Carol from a payphone to check on her," he said, pointing his thumb towards the bathroom.

"Cool," I let out another monosyllabic word, and downed the shot of vodka the bartender had situated in front of me like 10 minutes prior to my passing out incident. My throat felt so numb it didn't even burn on the way down, and yeah, probably not my wisest decision.

"And she told me her CVR broke," he continued, and then frowned. "No, her RVC. HSV?" his frown deepened even more. "Shit, you know, the stupid video machine with all the stupid video tapes and stuff."

"A VCR?" I helped him, raising an eyebrow. I still think that enduring Ross' drunkenness when we were both inebriated was a really difficult burden that should've been rewarded in some sort of monetary way.

"Yeah, that, whatever. Anyway, I think I'm gonna go see if I can fix it," he finished at last, and I tried to drunkenly guess whether this whole excuse was supposed to be an euphemism. It was hard to tell, but I'm going to settle on yes. "You mind? You staying?"

"Sure, don't worry about me," I waved my hand dismissively, because I thought that if he wanted to fix Carol's broken VCR, whatever that meant, I was no one to stop him. I didn't think that I shouldn't be left behind in my state, or that my lack of vehicle and my shortage of money made my return an almost impossible task. And the funny thing is, Ross didn't seem to consider that either.

And so he left me there, surrounded by people, and music, and laughter, and oh-yes-joy, and I suddenly got a pang in my chest. Fuck it, no, there it was again. I put two fingers on my aching chest, trying to make myself breathe like a normal person, and then I looked at them for a second. God, they all seemed so happy, it was infuriating. Maybe I was being irrational, but irrationality was all I had left, and I definitely knew I didn't want them to be happy, not at all. I wanted them to be fucking miserable, just like I was.

I swallowed, and swallowed, and I tried to swallow some more, but the damned lump in my throat had decided a long time ago that it wouldn't move, and that all my efforts were going to be in vain, and that it was just going to stay there for as long as it wanted, and there was nothing I could do about it.

"Move, goddamnit!" I'd like to point out that I didn't say this to myself, but that a guy was shouting it in my ear. He efficiently pulled me out of my reverie, making me obey to his demands by sharply pushing me aside. I looked down at my arm, because he'd pushed me so hard the emotional pain had just turned physical, and I could not make myself believe that chimpanzees so rude existed, let alone had open doors to places were human beings socialized.

"Hey, fuck you," scoffed the alcohol for me, emphasising those two words beautifully in a way that surprised me. "You don't own the place, amigo," I said, and I did it with such sass, I felt sad all of the sudden that the only person that could hear me, wouldn't appreciate it in the least.

"Pft, and do you?" my simian friend turned around and asked me, examining me with disdain, and I can't really explain it, but he had a face that was really easy to hate. You know the one. Every little thing about him ticked me off, and I definitely wanted him to know it. I apologize in advance for the foul language. "Because I don't think you do either, dickhead, so don't be tellin' me nothing."

"Sure, but I don't go around doing whatever the fuck I want, you fucking idiot with that stupid fucking goatee," I shamelessly said. Jesus Christ, what was I thinking. If I'm honest with you, he was not much a chimpanzee, as he was a freaking gigantic gorilla. I find it funny that Sober Chandler would've escaped a long time ago, probably in the middle of a shriek, yet here I was.

"Did you just say what I think you just said?" he asked with his deep voice, surprise coating his expression, making it hard for my intoxicated mind to fully understand such a tongue twister, and God, I truly hated his ridiculous face with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

So, it's possible I said, "Look, if I spoke monkey, I'd put it in your language," instead of shutting up and going home, and it's also possible that the guy with the stupid fucking goatee knocked me to the ground in one swift motion, instead of giving me the bear hug my heart was crying out for.

I suppose I had it coming.

For a brief moment, time stopped and I didn't even know where I was. But then, commotion grew, my nose bled profusely, and I groaned like the sentiment came straight from my gut, because, to be fair, it hurt a lot. When I finally got my bearings and I saw him standing there, looking down at me and flipping his gorilla-sized hand, I got up slowly, trying to stop the hemorrhage with my right hand.

"You retarded fuck," he said, putting a nice bow on top of his nice present by spitting on me. I can't believe I had gorilla-flavored saliva on my clothes. Anyway, this is when rage turned into a thing of beauty, because as slow as I'd been getting on my feet, I jumped on stupid-fucking-goatee-guy surprisingly fast, flailing my arms with the sheer force of a farting flea, all in an effort to land a punch that would get me my dignity back. Too late, I guess.

Everybody saw this as an opportunity to get mad at everybody (someone flipped me the angriest bird I've ever experienced, but that gesture lost all of its power when another guy tried to headbutt me), and the bartender was forced to call the cops to stop the brawl. When the rest of attendees - all of them much sober than me - heard the sirens, they all fled from the place, leaving me behind with a bleeding nose, a swollen lip, and the punishment to spend a few hours in prison. Stupid-fucking-goatee-guy happily escaped, and I suppose the rest is history.

"Bing, come on, let's go," a short officer with a surprisingly deep voice yelled, jolting me back into reality after I'd been pondering over my idiocy for an unknown period of time. The guy that had been digging for gold in his nose, that had been telling me the story of his life, and that had warned me against 'duding' him found my name amusing, so he laughed. I got up as best as I was able to – which was not good - and then got semi-carried by this short man, who clutched my arm so tightly, I felt like it was going to fall off.

And that's when I saw her.

She was in sweats, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, looking all concerned and hugging herself. I let out a time-consuming breath I'd probably been holding for over a week, because even though she was worried and it was totally my fault, I desperately needed to see her. She walked in my direction, and then clutched the arm the short officer had been mutilating just ten seconds ago. I couldn't help but lean on her out of necessity, even though she looked so terribly small that night, and all because I was afraid I was going to fall down, and I'm positive that it was one of the last things I needed.

"They told me they're not gonna press charges," she said in a flat voice, tucking my keys and wallet – my personal effects in their entirety, how sad is that - in my front pocket. "Because they're not sure whether you started the 'disorderly conduct' or were just caught in the middle of it."

"And I was polite," I said then, like it was a brilliant thing to point out, although now it just seems plain dumb.

"What you are is a fucking idiot," she corrected me, cursing again and dragging me out the front door. Monica barely cursed, this was terrible. "Seriously, I can't believe you, Chandler."

"Yeah, I kinda can't believe me either," I agreed, and that's the last thing I remember uttering that night.

Once we were out, she hailed a cab while lecturing me some more, and maybe it was because I didn't want to hear what I already knew, but everything simply turned into a drunken blur again, until an unpleasant ray of sunshine woke me up the next morning, with my body in its entirety splayed out across her living room floor, right beside her white couch. You must be really wasted when you fall off a couch in the middle of the night and you don't jolt into consciousness immediately.

Monica was in the bathroom - I knew this because I could hear someone using the shower - and I wanted to get up, because I didn't want her to see me like this, pathetically lying on the floor, even though it was likely she already had, but my head was killing me, and everything around me was spinning, and the coolness of the carpet felt really good against my skin, and so I simply stayed put for a minute. I used my minute to draw some conclusions: I was shirtless, and my mouth tasted like a combination of alcohol, cigarettes, and vomit. Thank God I couldn't remember half of what had happened the previous night.

I tried to think about what I did remember. The phone call was almost entirely clear, and I could still remember the bar debacle, and her disappointed face upon seeing me like that, but the whole taxi ride was a huge dark spot. I just hoped I hadn't said anything overly stupid, and God, I really hoped I hadn't thrown up inside the cab.

When the water stopped running inside the bathroom a moment later, I knew I had to get up now, and so I tried, even if it was at a depressingly slow pace, and then landed onto her couch with a_ thump_, which was a sound that sent my head straight to hell. I groaned, the sound muffled by the pillow, and when all the air had left my lungs so I could groan no more, Monica got out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body, entering her bedroom quickly without even acknowledging my presence.

I decided this was my moment to use the bathroom, so I tried my best to walk there, even though my legs felt weak and shaky and they could barely stand my own weight. When I triumphantly made it without causing any casualties (that is, breaking anything or falling flat on my face), I turned the faucet on and splashed some water against my face. Then, I took some deep breaths, eyes closed and water dripping from my skin. I'm not exaggerating a bit when I say that my whole body ached, that I'd never felt this nauseous, and that I was afraid to look at my reflection in the mirror.

Understandably so, since what was waiting for me in there was kind of scary: I looked like I hadn't slept in about four years, different tufts of hair were sticking out in the weirdest places possible, my lower lip was red and swollen, my right eye looked like it was still trying to decide whether to turn black or not, and my nose and upper lip were stained with some dried blood that had resisted there all through the night. Everything about me looked really weird, somehow foreign, to be honest, as if I was another person inhabiting another body.

I reasoned to myself that at least the dried blood part was fixable. Monica got out of her bedroom fully clothed when I was trying to wash it away, with a sweater in her right hand and a mug in the left. She came to a stop when she spotted me, throwing me a shy, "Morning."

"Hey," I said, drying my face with her towel carelessly and stepping out into the living room afterwards.

"I brought you this," she said, throwing the sweater at me, but not in an annoyed, I-totally-despise-you kind of way. "I mean, your shirt's in the washing machine, because it's got blood and vomit on it, which I don't think is going to come out," she continued, and oh, tasty. "And you still have some clothes in here, so..." she trailed off, gesturing to the grey sweater she'd worn many times in the past, to go out or to sleep or whatever, because I'd actually insisted on it, but now regretted.

"Oh, okay. Thanks," I whispered, tightly clutching the sweater with both hands, eyes downcast. I truly felt worse for disappointing her than for my memorable stint behind bars. She didn't deserve this, so that's why, after a beat, I added, "I'm so sorry."

"I know," she said, nodding slowly.

"And I've tried to call you this week," I added, looking down at my hands and pretending to find the remaining blood under my nails fascinating.

"I know that, too," she said again, focusing her attention on whatever was inside her mug. It was like neither one of us wanted to take a look at this mess. But then she surprised me, like she always did, laughing softly, and waving her free hand at me, "You look awful, by the way."

I timidly smiled, finding the fun in the otherwise 'unfun' condition of my awfulness, and she kept laughing softly, and then I laughed softly, too, and then we laughed softly together in harmony, momentarily forgetting our current situation, and my God, how much I'd missed this. "Yeah, I think I know, too."

"I think, y'know..." she started, but then she looked at me, like _really_ looked at me, and she sobered up quickly. We stopped laughing softly together, and we probably remembered how things actually were, and how I was the dumbest person on the face of the planet, and when this awkward silence stood between us, the uncertainty suddenly stopped being so uncertain, and she cleared her throat, and I cleared mine, too. "Anyway, I have..." she sighed, although it was barely perceptible, "I have to run some errands now, so perhaps you should go. I mean, you probably have to take a shower, and feed yourself, and stuff."

And she said all this so politely, even though she should've been throwing her furniture at me in a lapse of contained rage, that it almost made me want to curl up in the fetal position and start rocking back and forth. I thought that we probably ought to talk about everything, but I agreed that now was not the right moment, what with me looking and feeling like I'd just been run over by a bus.

"Yeah, sure," I swallowed, slipping on the sweater quickly. Just my luck, it smelled exactly like her, and I still had to decide whether that was a good or a bad thing. I walked straight to the door while running my fingers through my hair and considering this, and then I opened it, only when I was already on the other side, her voice called from behind, and I stopped.

"You were right, by the way," she approached the doorway quickly, with her mug full of something and her damp hair resting over her shoulders, and I scrunched up my face, trying to remember when was the last time that I might've been right about something. "You just can't be friends with someone you're in love with. I know that now," she said, with that subtle emphasis on the now, sounding all dramatic and bringing up the conversation that had taken place seven months ago, three days after she'd entered my life for the first time, calling me weird in a way that sounded like a compliment. I still remembered how confident she looked about everything related to love, and I thought about how I'd probably destroyed all her optimism by now.

"I-..." I trailed off, shrugging, and she tipped her mug with her fingers, looking right into my eyes and waiting for me to answer. Like always, I didn't know what to say or do, so I simply settled on, "I'm sorry," even though this time I had no idea what I was apologizing for. How was I supposed to answer that trite, yet completely crushing statement, anyway?

But the thing is, she nodded, like she understood my words even though I didn't, and then she started to shut the door, which might sound like something incredibly simple, but I swear, it felt like she took several hours to do it. And maybe that's why, when it finally clicked, I was left alone on the other side, obviously, but trying to make sense of the fact that she was despairingly close, yet I could not feel any farther.

I seriously don't think I've ever felt lonelier in my entire life.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Have you guys watched Beginners? If you haven't, well, why not? Fantastic film, go watch it now! And if you have, well, then you may notice I flagrantly stole a line from the film. But hey, you've been warned - I'll apologize later, haha. :P

* * *

Tiredness is a very bizarre phenomenon.

I'll explain: the more time you sleep, the more tired you feel when you wake up, and so you sleep an insane amount of time again in an effort to eradicate that tiredness, but then you become incredibly tired again, and so your life just feels as if this stupid cycle is going to repeat itself for the rest of eternity. In the end, all you seem to be doing is hibernate, and the clock on top of your nightstand ends up turning into a villain worthy of the best villain traits that the best movie villain in the history of movie history didn't even know existed.

But that's not all, my friend - your eyelids turn against you, too, as if they were not part of the you that doesn't want to be tired. You'll be happy to find out that, on this particular day, mine only needed sun, doors, and voices to flutter open; the morning sun burning against my face, the front door being shut, and familiar voices talking in the hallway. But the struggle was not over yet, no: my enemy (oh, the clock) was sitting on top of my nightstand, rubbing its fictitious hands in anticipation, more than ready to judge me.

A little four over there, a little seven over here, and as it turns out, it was 4:07 in the afternoon. Not so much a morning sun, apparently.

I groaned so hard I probably disturbed whoever was sleeping on the opposite side of the world. I angrily kicked my sheets away like they were at fault. I also let out a long sigh, and I folded my hands under my head as I lay on my back, and then, I didn't move. I just stared up at the ceiling, and when my mind was ready to start functioning again, I simply thought. Another day, another thought. I thought about her, and I thought about me, and I thought about these 16 days, 12 hours, and 42 minutes in which her and me had completely stopped existing as a whole. I thought about the lines on her face, and the sound of her laugh, and the life that radiated from her mouth when she smiled and the hurt that radiated from her tears when she cried.

I thought about The Kiss, which I'd decided to rename The Last Fucking Kiss. And yes, I thought about The Last Fucking Kiss a lot. And I wished a lot, too, that someone had cleverly warned me beforehand that it was going to be the last one, because then I would've not kissed her on such a silly impulse, and so The Last Fucking Perfect Kiss would not exist, and therefore it would be neither perfect nor the last, and then thinking about it would not feel like such a mean stab to the heart.

I also thought about the flawed logics of Chandler Bing, which I thought could be written into a quite decent-ish book, and Christ, I thought about how much I missed her, and how much I wanted her, and how much I needed her, and I thought about how much I despised myself for being such a needy bastard, and so I felt tears prickle the back of my eyes until I blinked them away, because one of those so-called flawed logics of Chandler Bing is that Chandler Bing is the kind of jerk that talks about himself in the third person, yet Chandler Bing is not the kind of jerk that cries, not ever, and especially not when other human beings are involved. Oh, man.

Luckily for my sanity, my thoughts of flawed logics and whatnot were interrupted by my stomach growling violently, and I reasoned that overemotionalism was not a good enough motive to let myself die of starvation. Not yet, at least. I disentangled myself from the leftover sheets around me, and went to rummage through my pile of clothes, trying to find something decent I could wear to start mingling with the living.

I put on some jeans, because that was the easy part, but then no t-shirt seemed appropriate, or even close to OK. I'd just discarded the second green t-shirt in a row ("Why all the green?" I had whined. "I don't even like green that much,") when Ross happily trotted into the room with a carton box marked as 'ROSS CRAP' under his left arm.

First, he closed the door behind him. Then, he looked at me. After looking at me for an indecent period of time, he cleared his throat. But then he didn't say a single word. It's like he was waiting for me to take notice of him first or something. So, I wearily said, "Hello, Ross."

"Oh, hey," he answered almost immediately, shifting the box from one arm to the other. "Your face looks even better today."

I should clarify that this was not Ross blatantly coming on to me because I looked sensational that day, and so he simply couldn't resist himself and had to point it out (hah!). He was referring to my bar incident that had taken place the previous week, and that had left my face in deplorable conditions after having been almost knocked out by an ape. Those injuries/wounds/whatever actually healed quite fast and hence were long gone, so I suppose he just didn't know what to say, because I looked exactly like I had the day before, which was neither terribly good nor bad, but just like my normal self.

"Thanks, man," I absentmindedly said anyway, without diverting my attention from the pile of, hopefully, clean clothes that had been hastily thrown into a vacant chair by me, without any kind of sense or order. I thought that Monica would pass out just by taking a look at this mess, and then I felt another stab on my chest, because it hit me that all this knowledge about things she'd do was pretty much useless now.

"So... hey, you okay?" he asked after a beat, making it seem like this question had just popped into his head. An incredibly red and ugly t-shirt I'd never seen before made an appearance in my pile of clothes. Must be Ross' t-shirt, I internally reasoned.

"Yes, I'm fine," I said, the way you say it when you don't really mean it, but it sounds like the easiest thing to say. Ross didn't look pleased with my lame answer, probably because he wasn't brain-dead, but thankfully decided to let it slide.

"Okay," he cleared his throat again, leaving his box full of ROSS CRAP on top of his desk. "Anyway, I gotta run to the library - I have this final tomorrow and, dude, it's not looking good," he said around a laugh, cutting it short when I didn't reciprocate. "So, anyway," he said, now picking up a couple of books off his desk. "I'd better go now, I'm already running late."

"Sure, have fun," I said as he opened the front door, almost stepping outside. Almost.

"But hey, listen..." he abruptly turned around, lifting a finger and making it look like he'd suddenly changed his mind about something oh, so very important. He paused briefly, absentmindedly running his fingers over the cover of one of his books, and then he just narrowed his eyes at me for a second, his whole face pulling into a sad frown, like he was in front of a lost puppy. "It's just, seriously..." he shook his head, shrugging. "Are you gonna be alright, man?"

And I shot him a glance, and when I saw his expression, I finally stopped going through my clothes. Maybe it's because he looked undoubtedly worried, or sad, or maybe because his eyes were just full of pity, but I'm serious when I say that such a simple, innocent question made me feel like the entire world around me was going to collapse in the next five seconds.

Was I going to be alright? Hell, I reckon that it's very likely, but when someone asks you a direct question about it, you just don't know the answer - the only thing you know then is that the lump in your throat is getting too hard to swallow, and that the evil voice inside your head is ordering you to be sad.

More seconds ticked by, and I opened my mouth at last. "Yeah," I lied, nodding, and I think even my voice cracked a little.

"Okay..." he trailed off, unconvinced, shifting his books in his arms. "Well, then I guess I'll see you later, man."

"Sure, bye," I waved my hand at him, as lively as I could manage, giving him a tight-lipped smile. Still holding his books, he spun around and left.

And so I was alone, once again, with yet another green t-shirt in my hands.

"Anyway..." I said to no one in particular, picking the first decent and ungreen t-shirt (grey, actually) my pile of clothes seemed to offer. When I was fully dressed and equipped to go, or so I thought, I patted my empty pockets out of habit and noticed that I didn't have my wallet with me.

I mentally reasoned that I needed some money if I wanted to feed myself food that did not come from a smelly trash can, so I started searching around the room. This was the first time it truly bothered me how messy it had become in the last couple of weeks, and only because it was detrimental to my search. I suddenly felt very bad for Ross, having to coexist in this dumpster.

Now, when you've been looking for over five minutes with no positive results whatsoever, you start to get a little frustrated. And let me tell you that frustration leads you to do sort of weird things, like looking in places you never thought you'd look: inside a shoe, behind the closet, under your roommate's mattress (luckily for my peace of mind, nothing too private was in there). I'd moved to Ross' nightstand drawer by then, going through the contents and letting out frustrated, long sighs, when something caught my eye. It was squared, it was black, and it was almost completely new: it wasn't my wallet, of course, it was Ross' Moleskine.

For a blissful moment of ignorance, I truly wondered why it felt like such a poignant object to my heart, but then I remembered that it was the one Monica had picked out of curiosity and boredom one day, assuming it was mine, and where she'd been scribbling down some things I never even thought or bothered to check afterwards.

And this might seem irrational, and dangerously close to masochist behaviour, too, but I definitely wanted to read what it was now, even though rationality was trying to tell me that she'd just been doodling in it, and rationality was also trying to tell me that it was probably nothing. And yet.

And yet I wanted to confirm the nothingness with my own eyes.

So I picked it up from the open drawer, and then went to sit on my bed, wrapping my fingers around it tightly. Then I just took a deep breath. And then I took another. And then another. And then I mentally insulted myself for being so afraid of an inanimate object.

After a moment's deliberation, I finally opened it. I first went through some unimportant notes Ross had written a long time ago; most of them had Carol's name obsessively written over and over, and the most 'interesting' thing was a drawing of a ruler telling a boulder "You rock," and a boulder telling a ruler "You rule." I didn't want to snoop around, but I guess you can imagine nothing too intriguing was in there.

After reading a bit more through Ross' predictability, I finally found what I didn't want to find, not really, but that some part of me had tricked me into thinking I did. And oh my. I felt like it was staring back at me, seriously, flawlessly written in black ink in Monica's round and perfect handwriting, and it simply said, "Bing! You make me laugh, but it's not funny."

And it was so inconsequential, yes, but it meant so much to me now, in my time of despair, that I didn't know if I wanted to burn down the notebook out of spite or hold it tightly to my chest and begin to cry my eyes out like a big chunk of me knew I wanted to. I didn't want to be here, in the solitude of my own room, blinking back tears that would admit what a moron I'd been. I wanted to be with her, in the solitude of her own room, or in the solitude of mine, or in the solitude of a fucking crowded street, I didn't really care.

I thought about her, and pardon me the cliché, as this drug I simply could not get out of my system, no matter how hard I tried. I felt as if my arms were still used to reaching out for her in the morning when I woke up, and as if my eyes were still used to searching for her in a crowd, and as if my heart was still used to skipping a beat every time she walked into my field of vision. I suppose that the fact that I didn't know what scared me the most, that I mattered to her or that she mattered to me, was what scared me the most.

And I'll forlornly admit it: I was not going to burn Ross' notebook down, since I definitely didn't need another Geller against me, and so that only left me with the bawling option. And I was going to do just that, even though Chandler Bing does not cry, not ever, yet when I turned my head to the left, I finally found what I'd been looking for. Right there, comfortably tucked between my bed and my nightstand, from where it had probably fallen off, was my wallet. How ironic that things turn up when you've decided to focus your attention on your best friend's notebook, which holds a message written from the beyond by your ex-girlfriend. Or something to that effect.

After some more deliberation, I decided to put the Moleskine back in its place - no bawling - and then recollected the wallet from the floor and slid it into my back pocket. When I was about to go out the door at last, though, sentimentalism must've gotten the best of me, because I took a look around me and thought that a day this lonely should be prohibited.

Anyway, indeed.

* * *

I am not a picky kind of guy, especially when I'm that hungry, so I went into the first burger joint the neighborhood had to offer and ate by myself in a corner there, because I supposed they called it comfort food for a reason. Fifteen minutes later, I was making my way back to my dorm while smoking that much-needed cigarette (the smoke after sex and the smoke after food are the kind of pleasures one should not deprive oneself of), when my mind processed a sound that didn't feel quite right: that goddamned swing behind that goddamned building was creaking. Curiosity got the better of me, of course, and curiosity made me find out I had not gone crazy, and I was not imagining things.

And oh, of course it was Monica who was in there, all alone, reading something in the solitude of what used to be my favorite place on earth. I don't know what had changed in me, especially since the world was just transitioning from spring to summer and it should've looked better, prettier, and greener than ever, but now my former favorite place on earth just looked like the saddest place on earth to me. How about that.

For a second, I just looked at her from the distance, very much in a stalker-y fashion, but she seemed as lonely as I was feeling, so I decided to go talk to her, even if it wasn't the most intelligent thing to do. She was on the same swing she'd sat on all those months ago, with the same leg tucked under her body, thumbing her way through the pages of that book.

"Hey, what're you doing here?" I asked, putting my hands in my pockets, cigarette between my teeth. She looked up at me, surprised, and before she'd formed an answer, I crashed down on the swing next to her, because I was not willing to press my back against the metal post that was holding the whole thing together, just like I'd done lo' those many months ago.

"Oh, um, nothing, really. It's just..." she trailed off, marking the page in her book by folding the top corner. "My mom sent us some stuff, so I came to give Ross a couple of things," she explained, and I nodded. So, it was her voice on the other side of the door, forcing my heavy eyelids to open. Interesting.

"And what are you reading?" I tried to spark some kind of small talk-related conversation, taking a puff of smoke and waving to her book. Monica just lifted it and showed me._ East of Eden_. I nodded approvingly. "Steinbeck, huh? Nice."

"Yeah, it's actually a book my mom sent Ross," she explained, the world making sense again. No offense to Monica, whom I dearly appreciate, but she'd never been closer to a John Steinbeck novel in her life. "And he insisted, quite vigorously, by the way, that I should read it."

"It's a great book," I conceded, turning my head to blow some smoke out of my mouth.

She nodded at me, smiling, and we inserted ourselves once again into this dynamic where she and I simply forget at the same time that the world keeps turning without waiting for you, and that things are simply not a pretty as we'd like them to be. So we sat in silence for a second. We were not even swinging, we were just swaying over the ground, silently going over the stuff in our heads, whatever it was.

"Hey, when are you leaving?" I asked after a while, the question popping into my head, even though Ross had already informed me.

"In three days," she shortly said, showing me three fingers. I nodded again. "You're smoking again."

"Oh. Yeah," I admitted, because there was no point in denying the obvious. Now it was her time to nod.

More silence. While it lasted, Monica shoved her book inside the bag that had been resting beside her feet on the grass, and I tried to finish my cigarette without making it look like I was rubbing my habit on her face. There was this gigantic elephant dancing its way all over the abandoned swings, and I tried to work up the courage to acknowledge it.

"So, um... should we talk?" I semi-asked, semi-suggested at last, flicking the cigarette butt away.

"Sure," she made a gesture with her hand. "Talk."

Put in the spotlight way too quickly, I blanked. "Well, I'm sorry... for like, everything," I said, feeling extremely inadequate.

"Yeah, you said that already," she quickly answered, making me feel even more extremely inadequate.

"Well, I want you to know it's true," I helplessly said, shrugging my shoulders.

"I know it's true," she said.

And yet, even more silence. I was not accustomed to this. I was not accustomed to awkward silences with Monica, and I was not accustomed to having strained conversations with her that were filled with actual words, but that didn't have any meaning inside them. She was looking at me expectantly now, but I had run out of words already. She seemed resolute. I probably just seemed anxious.

"Can I tell you something random I think?" she twisted around, helping herself with her feet so she could face me. And oh, did she face me; she'd never looked more intensely at me in her life.

"Tell me something random you think," I nodded.

"You're probably not gonna like it," she added, and I braced myself. Still, I nodded. "I mean, you were the one that wanted to talk."

"Tell me anyway, yeah."

She took a deep breath, and I braced myself a little bit more. "I've been thinking a lot about us, y'know, lately," she started. "And I've been trying to figure out what the hell happened, or what the problem was, and even though I'm pretty sure some of this is my fault, too, I've come to the conclusion that the main problem is you," she said, and I tried to find comfort in the fact that things could only go uphill from here. Probably. "And you know why I think this?"

I shook my head no.

"Because I think you have a penchant for self-pity," she continued, still facing me. Downhill, downhill. "I mean, you probably don't realize this, but it looks like you unconsciously enjoy wallowing in it or something, and you have no idea how to cope with things for which you won't be able to pity yourself later, so you'd just rather be miserable in the comfy confines of the familiar, than happy in the uncomfy confines of the unknown."

I was about to say something, only God knows what, but she held up her hand first, wanting to continue with this pseudo-speech that seemed specifically designed to make me feel bad.

"And sometimes it's like you actually believe that you have the exclusive rights of suffering or something," she said, phrasing it like this so-called Suffering was one of my most prized possessions. "Probably because you think that it's the only thing you have, and so that must mean that your suffering is greater than other people's suffering. But that's not actually true," she said, and I don't know why, since she was the one saying bad things about me (albeit kind of true), but she was the one getting madder by the word.

"I know that's not true, Monica," I clumsily defended myself.

"But you don't, not really. I mean, you think you have it so bad, but of course people around you suffer, too. And of course people around you have had crappy childhoods, too. And of course people around you are afraid of admitting things, too. But you don't even seem to realize all that, because you are too self-involved in your own crappiness to do it. You see what I'm trying to say?"

"I think I see what you're trying to say, yes, but I don't really understand why you're saying them," I quietly said, running my fingers through my hair. "I mean, you're just being... cruel. Why are you saying all this stuff?"

"I'm saying all this stuff because I'm mad at you," she reasoned, wording everything like she'd rehearsed this conversation in her head plenty of times already. "And I'm mad at you because things were going incredibly well, even if, who knows, maybe I was just fooling myself, but I definitely know that now everything is ruined, and I definitely know I'm mad at you, okay?"

"Okay, hey, I know," I soothed, trying to calm her down. "I'm mad at me, too."

"But I'm also mad at me, because at first I thought it was all my fault for putting too much pressure on you or something like that. But, y'know, then I thought that you've got a lot of stuff to figure out, and you've got a lot of stuff to figure out about a lot of things, and I don't even know how to help you with that," she kept ranting, perfectly acting like I would in a situation like this one. "I mean, I don't even know what you want!"

She stepped out of the swing then, paced around for a second, and then looked down at me. I thought at the moment that perhaps in a perfect world I would've said I only wanted her, or that without her in my life I was in hell, or that she'd gotten under my skin a long time ago, so fast I hadn't even realized it. But this was no perfect world, and I wasn't perfect myself, and so I just sat there, like a mope with my mouth half-open, waiting for my tongue to magically form the pronouns or the words I desperately wanted to say.

"I'm gonna go, okay?" she said, sort of resolute but on the verge of crying, too, picking her bag off the ground and slinging it over her shoulder. "I can't be waiting for you forever. I'm sorry."

And I don't know how or when or why, but my brain seemed to unfreeze itself for a brief moment, and I got up from my swing and said, "No, please, don't go," and she stopped and faced me again, and I was the one looking down at her now when I said, "I want _you_, Monica. I'm miserable right now, I think that much is obvious."

And she said, "Jesus, you are just so goddamn selfish," and she did it really slowly and with a surprising calmness in her voice, and yet I still winced, because it was not what I was expecting, and I'll admit it. No such thing as a perfect world, after all. "It's like you want a lot of things, but you won't give anything in return. It's not my job to take care of you, or rescue you, or whatever you think I'm here for, Chandler, and it's incredibly unfair that you somehow think it is."

"I'm sorry," I mumbled what had apparently become the only words in my substantially limited vocabulary.

"Look, about everything you have to figure out..." she said after a beat, swallowing thickly, because she wasn't capable of being mad at me without looking extremely sad, and something inside of me broke, but something inside of me fretted, too. "Just take these months to yourself, or to do whatever you want, or I don't really care. But I think it's probably best if you do it alone, because I can't go home on my own with this burden in my head, and... I don't know," she almost finished, taking a step backwards, her voice wavering a bit. "So, there's that, okay?"

"No, please," I pathetically begged, but she was already leaving. "Monica, c'mon, let's talk this out or something."

"No, I'm sorry, too," she muttered, I don't know if to herself or to my benefit, but I do know that with those words, she made her way out of this place, just like she had eight months ago, only this time she was doing it alone and she was leaving me behind.

And this is not something I'm proud to admit, but when she left me alone, I sat down on one of the abandoned swings, clung to its chains for dear life, and then I cried. I don't know for how long; maybe one minute, maybe thirty. I finally did what I'd been on the verge of doing the whole day, but that I had stupidly repressed and only God knows why.

And the strangest thing is, at first, I didn't even know I was crying. It was like this silent, solitary tear trickled down my cheek without my noticing, but then salt water wetted my lips, and I finally figured out what was happening, because I am that slow. After the revelation, everything was a little more cathartic, though; sobs rapidly rippled through my body as if they were filled with electricity, and tears flowed down my face with surprising ease. I cried, and I cried, and I cried, and I cried like I hadn't cried in my whole life until I couldn't cry any more.

And do you know why? Because Chandler Bing does cry when he thinks he's going to die of love sickness, only he'd never been on the verge of a love sickness-related death before, so there was no way he could know about it.

I hate those three words, and everything they imply. I hate myself for not being able to figure out the obvious out of fear, or ignorance, or just plain cowardice. I hate that I didn't even know what was happening until it was happening, and that for even the shortest period of time, it seemed reasonable to me, as if there was no other choice. I hate that I had just ruined the only glimmer of hope my world had to offer by not being able to say the right thing.

I hate that I am filled with hate.

But I especially hate that now I have to spend these companionless weeks trying to figure out how someone could be as clever as to trick someone like her to fall in love with me, yet be as ignorant as to realize what love was all about seconds after she'd walked out of my life indefinitely.

Fuck, man - In love, I am.

* * *

A/N: The line from Beginners is, elementary, my dear Watson: "You make me laugh but it's not funny." I don't know why, but when I thought of bringing back the stupid Moleskine, that line haunted my mind, and then I could not think of anything else, and yeah, it fits, so I'm sorry, Mike Mills, but I stole your brilliant line.

Now that all that is behind us: "In love, I am," said Luke Pritchard from The Kooks, in their beautiful song 'Do You Love Me Still?' I get a lot of inspiration from my fellow Kook friends (I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! /cries into hands), so I think and hope I'll be talking more in-depth about them in the future. Oh, and there's only a couple of chapters left. Woo hoo, I feel accomplished.

But hey, above all, thank you for all the love you left on the last chapter - my delicate heart truly appreciates it!


	12. Chapter 12

"Jesus Christ!" I yell this to myself, admittedly because I am alone, and not because I actually believe I'm the supposed redeemer of humanity reincarnated. For the past six minutes, I've been trying to fix the air conditioner of the car I'm driving, without lots of positive results - that is, none. But much to my dismay and despair, this vehicle is so old, I'm actually starting to wonder if the model came out when Diplodocuses merrily roamed the Earth.

And even though I know this is just a joke, and a rather hyperbolic one, calling it a relic wouldn't be that far from the sad truth.

"C'mon now, seriously, what is wrong with this shit?" I keep whining to myself, with obvious desperation in my voice, while I wipe some sweat off my forehead with one hand, and restrict myself from punching the already broken regulator with the other.

I want to clear a couple of things up: I don't usually talk to myself as if I'm a whole other person, calling out Jesuses in the midst of such an unbearable summer heat, but my main resolution at the moment involves distracting myself with pretty much any little thing I can; even if that little thing is fixing unfixable air conditioners.

There's a reason behind this, and it's because I don't want to idiotically stop to think things over. In fact, the main proof that I shouldn't use my head too much lies in this whole decision being based on not thinking: it comes from the brilliant minds of my mother and myself, so you can imagine.

And, truth be told, I'm still sort of dubious of what's the final purpose behind frying my ass off in an old (some might say ancient) car without air conditioning for like two full hours. Now that I've been on the road for over 45 minutes, I'm starting to anxiously think that maybe driving back home and heartedly pretending this whole thing never happened isn't such an unappealing idea.

And see? Now I'm actually thinking. My plan (if you could call it that) is beginning to sink miserably, and it hasn't even started yet. I try to shake these thoughts off. I decide turning on the radio and rolling down the window is the right thing to do. So I do; music fills my ears, and fresh air fills the car, and it feels so good that my mind starts to drift again, and so I helplessly think a bit more anyway.

I start to think about the sequence of events that has brought me up to this point, and I think about how it all started this particular morning, too, with that innocent "How's my favorite son?" from my mother, who uttered it with annoying cheerfulness, as if she had plenty of more children to like any less.

But in reality, if you want to look even more back in time, it all started with the arrival of summer break, because Ross left, and Monica left, and the entire student population of New York left, and so I figured I had to leave, too, even if I'd rather stay. Out of a depressing lack of options, I ended up in my mother's house, where the only interesting thing I've found out is that Doris (you know, the chunky maid that poked me awake that one day) is not really named Doris, and that her actual, real name is Bridget, which, no offense to her, I didn't find fitting at all.

"Hey, genius, perhaps this wasn't such a good idea," I honestly thought the second I went through the front door, and all I could picture was Monica lifting up frames and asking me about them, and Monica clinging to me inside the kidney-shaped swimming pool, and Monica sneaking out my bedroom's window, and Monica getting physical with no other than myself on the bed of my infancy, and oh boy, it's been some hellishly long 23 days.

Plus, things haven't been particularly easy since I was blessed with the revelation that the weird feeling located in that exact place between my chest and my stomach was actually love (a weird feeling that grazed both the pleasant and the unpleasant, by the way), and I think maybe it has something to do with it hitting me a little too late. I'm not especially proud of my sobbing fest in the swings, either, but the great part of that depressing episode is that, even if it didn't make me feel that much better, I do feel like a heavy load has been lifted off my shoulders, so there's that.

Now, I've always assumed that, when you're in a situation like mine (that is, fresh out of a long-term relationship), you weep and mourn for the appropriate amount of time, until you wake up one day, and you miraculously start to feel a little better. Then you wake up the next, and hey, this mysterious magic keeps working, and you're even better that day. And then, thank God, you wake up the next month, and you're just perfectly fine.

"Monica?" I should've asked myself by now. "Who the hell is that woman?"

But the sick thing is, I don't. I've come to terms with the fact that everything happens much slower to me than it does to the rest of humanity, because I seem to be a weird specimen of a human being. I wake up every day, and for the shortest fraction of a second, I genuinely believe nothing's happened, and I genuinely believe she's going to call me any moment, desperate to tell me something I should not find interesting at all, but that I unexpectedly do.

I still miss her, and I miss her quite a lot, actually. It's kind of pathetic, really - it's as if time won't be able to heal me, and as if I've completely forgotten how to live without her occupying my thoughts. It's kind of pathetic to the point that, if I'm completely honest, I'd rather not dwell on it too much during the ride.

So, let's go back to what I was talking about before: my mother's house, and what it might've meant for my sanity - a really big, kind of solitary place, filled with lots of time to think, sleep, and eat, and chatty maids who have ill-suited names. I should point out that, even though my mother was supposed to be here even before I arrived, she showed up an extra 20 days late, carrying the excellent news that she was staying for just a week. Oh, my dear mother and her incredible surprises. Then on the third day of her stay, she asked how her favorite son was, and she did it for the first time in only God knows how much.

"I'm okay," I distractedly said. One of my resolutions for this summer is to start living like a somewhat normal person again, and so I was up on time to actually have breakfast whenever you are supposed to have breakfast. (I've been informed this is in the morning.) I was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, finishing off a bowl of cereals, and she collapsed onto the stool across from me, carrying an empty mug in her hands.

"Yeah? And how was school?" she eagerly asked, this sudden interest in my life feeling quite a little suspicious.

"It was good," I said, pulling my most nonchalant face and taking a spoonful of cereals into my mouth. I was lying, of course, since my finals had gone sort of terribly bad. I considered telling the truth for a brief, nonsensical moment, but then, I honestly found no good in telling her something like that, so I simply didn't.

"Anything interesting you might want to tell me?" she pushed with a mischievous smile, pouring herself a cup of coffee. I shook my head. "No? Not even a lucky lady then?" she insisted some more, and then added as if this wasn't a well-known fact: "You know how much I love the juicy stuff."

I looked at her across the counter for a second, and I wondered again what good could come out of telling her anything about me, my life, or my disastrous relationships, and seriously, I just found nothing. "Um, not really," I shrugged after a beat, and I must be quite an atrocious liar, because she hummed at my response, not really convinced.

"So, ha," she started, taking a sip of coffee, that sarcastic, stupid, and sharp _ha_ resonating in my ears, "your life's okay, college was good, and yet I've been here for a couple of days and the only thing you've done is mope around. It doesn't sound that good and that okay to me."

"Well, ha, that's me. It's not my fault you gave birth to a moper," I shot back, picking at the remaining food in my bowl. I know I seemed to be irremediably mad at Nora most of the time, and I also know that her sole and principal crime was doing nothing at all. But then again, that's not something you should do to your child, since they tend to grow up a little resentful.

"You don't know what you're talking about, sweetie. I don't give birth to mopers," she dismissed my whole rebuttal with a wave of her hand, and then quickly got back on track, "Anyhow, Chandler, come on! The interesting thing here, and you know it, is: was she pretty?"

Please, oh, please. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep pretending my bowl was the most fascinating item in the world since it was now empty, and so I felt forced to look at her, with her eyes fixed on mine, and her eyebrows totally up, and her face ostensibly expectant. What did I do in a past life to deserve this, I wondered.

"Oh, dear Jesus, honey," she continued then, gasping with derision and squeezing my hand with her own across the counter top. "Was she... a _she_?"

"Yes, of course she was a she," I kind of grumbled at her, rolling my eyes. Insinuate I'm a homosexual, and you'll easily get any answers from me, apparently. I probably shouldn't have felt so offended, but I'd like to point out that it was far too early in the morning for me to undividedly endure my mother.

"Well, and was she nice?" she insisted, gulping down more coffee.

I cleared my throat, lowering my head, the spoon clinking against the empty bowl. "Yeah, sure, she was nice."

"Okay," she nodded, pondering over her next question, because there surely had to be one. "And did she love you?"

And alright, that didn't felt quite like a question; it felt more like a bomb. I probably should've just left it at that, I should've thought again about what good could come out of talking to her about this, and I simply should've gone back to my room with my now full stomach, and just spent the entire day thinking or whatever, like the big dweller I know I am. Yet, strangely, when people bore holes through me with their eyes, I feel compelled to look away and be sincere, because it's that easy to intimidate me. It was barely perceptible, but I slowly bobbed my head.

"Oh," she said then, sounding more serious. "And did you love her?"

"Well, see, now-" I started and stopped with a shrug, drawing in a long breath and then letting it hiss out slowly. "Yes."

"Gee, then why aren't you two together?" she asked, and I suddenly realized what I was doing. Oh, God, quit while you still can, I told myself. I know I didn't want a lot of things to happen, but I definitely didn't want to be on the receiving end of all the insulting adjectives she'd throw at me, no doubt, right after finding out I was the miserable ruiner that had ruined the best thing that's ever happened to me, because I behaved, put plainly, like a dumbass.

"Ah, just because your son's a dumbass," I said, getting up and going to the sink, wanting to rinse the empty bowl, but mainly wanting to distract myself with something. "Let's just leave it at that, 'kay?"

"Chandler! Did you cheat on her?" she asked, her eyes wide and her mouth open. "Please, tell me I didn't raise a cheater!"

"No, of course not!" I turned around, forgetting all about my bowl and my beliefs, and foolishly blurting: "I just wouldn't tell her I loved her, is all."

Understandably so, I felt like the stupidest person in the world. It's like, if you want something from me, all you need to do is call me out on something I haven't done, or something I'm actually not. I squeezed my eyes shut out of regret, but then again, it's not like Nora's reaction helped my cause, either. "For God's sake, really?" she asked, on the verge of hysterical laughter. The whole scene was kind of weird, but I reluctantly nodded anyway. "Oh, God, how unoriginal!" she exclaimed, laughing some more. "And here I was, thinking that your story could help me find some inspiration for the plot of my next book, or something like that!"

Was this really, actually happening? It must've been happening, because the disbelief that coated my face was very real. "Well, forgive me for not taking originality into account, Mom," I said with sarcasm, drying my hands with a towel. "My mistake, won't happen again, eh?"

"No, but I mean, it's so easy, really. Just go to her and make things right, you dummy!" she easily said, with that daft laugh of hers, and I suddenly found that those simple words annoyed me a great deal. I suppose this is because I could say a few good things about my mother, but I was one hundred percent sure that one of them wasn't that she was ideally placed to set herself as a relationship coach.

So, I simply stared at her for a second, my mouth agape, and I started thinking about_ her_ \- my uncaring, abandoning mother, with her pompous hair and her pretentious makeup, even this early in the morning, easily giving advice on love as if she didn't proudly hold the trophy for most failed relationships in the shortest span of time ever witnessed, and I got rapidly filled with something that very well resembled contempt.

Yeah, that's right: contempt.

"Alright, that's kinda rich," I snapped, letting out an ironic laugh. "No offense, Mom, you're good with the fictional people and all, but your love life's even worse than mine, and that's saying something."

"So what?" she quickly retorted, not at all fazed by my words, tipping her mug with her fingers. "Does that mean I shouldn't try to give you good advice?"

I shrugged, jumping to sit on the kitchen counter. "Probably, yeah."

"Look, let's be real here for a second, Chandler," she started, leaving her stool vacant and making her way towards me.

"Yeah, come on, let's be real," I challenged her as she went across the room, right before she stopped right in front of where I was sitting.

"I'll admit it: I am as a crappy at love as I am at motherhood, but listen, I've had enough failed relationships to know how hard it is to find someone who is just _right_ for you, y'know?" she said, looking deeply into my eyes again and, God, I wondered how she did that. "Just let me ask you something, and then I'll leave you all alone if you want, okay?"

I hesitated at first, but then I nodded.

"Did you feel she was right for you?"

"Yeah," I said without even thinking, regretting straight away having caved to her wily ways so fast and easily, but since you already know I'm painfully weak, it's very likely this doesn't come off as surprising. "I mean, yeah. Totally."

"Well then, why don't you just go tell her how sorry you are, and that you love her, of course you do, and that if she took you back, you'd be the happiest little guy in the whole, wide world? I mean, it's quite simple, if you really think about it," she said. The 'little guy' comment kind of stung, but I decided to let it slide, mostly for the conversation's purposes.

"But I dunno. I mean, she's pissed at me big time, she probably doesn't even wanna see me," I retorted, squirming in my seat, because I didn't know if this was true, but the fact that it was a very real possibility made me want to repeat my embarrassing episode in the swings. This must've been really obvious to the outside world, because Nora took my face in her hands and made me look at her.

"Well, then if that happens, or if, y'know, you just screw up..." she trailed of with a sheepish smile, acknowledging what was most likely to happen, "just remember that tomorrow's always another day, until there's not another tomorrow, honey."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is kind of a really trite thing to say, but at the same time it felt completely _real_, and so it could easily be the wisest thing my mom has ever said to anyone, and she was saying it to me.

"But at least you'll know you did everything you could, y'know? I mean, I don't want my son regretting things he could've done differently. That's the worst thing that could happen to anyone," she finished at last, and God forbid me from thinking this ever again, but I got the feeling that she was totally right.

"You think?" I asked, trying to get rid of my last bit of doubtfulness.

"I know," she said, nodding confidently.

And then, I simply stared at her for a second, my mouth agape, and I started thinking about _her_ for the second time that morning - my darling, eye-opener mother, with her interesting hairstyle and her perfectly preserved makeup, no matter how early in the morning, easily giving advice on love as if she didn't proudly hold the trophy for most failed relationships in the shortest span of time ever witnessed, and I got rapidly filled with something that very well resembled affection.

Yeah, that's right: affection.

I mean, she gave love a try, and when she didn't succeed, she gave it another, and then another, and you have to give her something for trying so much without ever losing hope. The amazing thing of all this is that she loved, and failed, and then she loved again. I thought to myself that that's got to be some kind of privilege or virtue you are blessed with when you are born, and God, that's when it hit me, much to my mortification, that I actually envied my mother a whole lot. Okay, that felt really spooky.

"Holy fucking shit," I swore, bolting up from the kitchen counter, pulling my hands to my head, and wildly pacing around. "You're totally right. I mean, what the fuck was I thinking? I'm such a jackass, what the hell?!"

"Oh, Chandler!" Nora frowned, seemingly horrified, but I knew that, deep down, she was just plain amused. "And you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah, I do," I said, going with my instincts and pressing my lips to her forehead. She giggled because of this; believe it or not, I'd never heard my mother giggle before in my life. Such a freaky morning. "You, oh you... _You_, are a freaking genius! Christ! I gotta, I mean, I don't even know what I'm gonna..." I stuttered, patting some nonexistent pockets in my t-shirt and pajama pants, and then making my way towards the door with a shake of my head. "Yeah, I gotta go see her, I think."

"Wait, you're leaving _now_?" she asked, still standing in the middle of the room.

"Well, that was the idea," I said, coming to a stop and turning around. "I think I should, yeah," I stole a glance her way then, and I frowned. "Why?"

"Oh, I don't know, it's nothing," she gave me a tight-lipped smile, waving her hand dismissively. "Go, go."

"No, c'mon, tell me," I tried to push a little.

"Well, uh, it's just..." she trailed off first, before breaking into a stammering mess later, "I'd actually thought, maybe, I don't know, that we could grab some lunch together later, or something. I mean, today." And my mom was actually trying, poor thing. I'd never seen her out of words before - this definitely was a day where a lot of weird firsts were taking place.

I also thought then that I've always been quite the bitter child, always wanting to rub all the bad things in, and I realized that things could've been so much worse, to the point that I briefly wondered if I actually had it good while growing up. But then I stopped, because, okay, let's not get too carried away.

But anyway, I leaned against the door frame all the same, smiling and acting all casual, and then I said, "Sure, Mom, we can have lunch. I mean, I guess I'll try to make an idiot of myself in front of Monica later."

"Monica, huh?" she said, smiling. "I love it!"

And that's the story of how I ended up all alone for the next couple of hours in this ancient car (because, of course, my mother wasn't willing to lend me her sports car), thinking about this morning when I shouldn't be thinking at all, but of course after having had lunch with her, which became an experience full of sort of peculiar conversations, albeit surprisingly entertaining.

Now, I've never been to Long Island before, so while I didn't even know how much it would take a normal, scared traveller like me to get there, the fear of getting lost is what's been worrying me the whole way over. And now that I'm finally here, I am horrified to find out that it is literally five times bigger than I expected.

So, I keep looking down every two seconds at the crumpled, almost torn apart piece of paper in my hand, as if I'm expecting the words written in it to suddenly come to life and start giving me some directions I will actually understand. Ross sloppily wrote his parents' address in this note back when we first became friends, just in case I ever wanted to visit him there, and I'm sure he couldn't have imagined, not even in a thousand years, that it would come so in handy when trying to turn up unannounced in an effort to get his little sister back.

I kinda love life's wicked sense of humour, to be honest.

But anyway, I feel like things started to get somewhat lonely a while back, because the music blasting from the car radio is no longer there. Stupid, I know, but I'll explain: I thought it would keep me good company at first, but then some guy started to tearfully sing things like, "I fell in love with the world in you," and then a Beatles song invaded my senses right after, and even though I should point out that it wasn't even a song about love, and it was just a song about having sex on a road or something like that, I sharply turned the radio off anyway, because I had this strange feeling that it was personally mocking me, even if I was perfectly aware that it was a really absurd feeling to have.

And as I'm thinking this, right after utter silence's been the only thing filling the air inside the car for some time, but right before I die of absolute loneliness or sunstroke, their house comes into view at last. Oh, boy. I think I've seen it in photographs enough times to know how it looks like, and when I take a peek at the address, my suspicions are confirmed. I'm finally here, and I'm not lonely anymore, because now I'm just queasily nervous. I don't think I'm ready to face the possible and terrifying music of rejection, because I'm positive I was born unready in general, and I don't think that's fixable.

I take a deep breath that stretches itself for as long as it takes me to slowly pull into the curb. But taking deep breaths doesn't seem to work - I'm still nervous, though I'm actually petrified. So, after having brought the car to a gentle halt, I swiftly kill the engine, then methodically roll up the window, and then I just stay there, sitting upright with my hands locked white around the steering wheel, taking rather ragged breaths, and staring straight ahead through the windscreen with a blank expression on my face.

I know deep inside of me that, looking back in retrospect, I will admit I must've looked a little suspicious.

But I'm sorry, I can't help it - it's just occurred to me that I have not thought this through at all. So maybe that's why, as I'm going through this weird trance inside the car, I spend some time thinking about how things could go once I've gotten out of this bizarre situation. I mean, I want to come across as a respectful individual, particularly because Monica's father is a person I don't actually know, but that greatly intimidates me.

And so I start to think about how things could go once I've actually knocked on the door. Not too good, according to my sketchy imagination - I am stuck within the sick idea that Monica's father is going to come to the door. And God, most of these scenarios end terribly bad, and the ones that don't, pretty much involve him making a fist around my shirt and furiously shaking me until I lose all my willingness to live.

I seriously don't know how long I've been like this, but hey, luckily or not, I suddenly return to earth by force, because something seems to be happening, and I think it's happening in real life.

I find out I've been pulled out of my fictitious stream of endless possibilities because someone is repeatedly knocking on the window of my car. I jolt in my seat when the noise becomes painfully clear to me, and I also hear a gasp - turns out it comes from me, too. At the same time this all happens, my heart lurches forward, and my hands unlock from the wheel so they can reflexively clasp to my chest.

When I've confirmed my heart is not going to come out of my mouth, I decide to look up, but since the sun is blocking my view, I can only discern a blurry silhouette. I see another hand, I hear another knock. I squint my eyes a bit, because for some reason getting out of the car hasn't even crossed my mind, but then nothing really happens, and squinting doesn't seem to work very well.

Yet that is until, oh, dear God, I find out the silhouette is not a figment of my imagination, and that it actually has a voice, and that the voice is unexpectedly asking, "Chandler?" and it sounds kind of weird to my ears, like the voice is coming from inside a box, but then I realize I'm the one who's inside the freaking box, and then the voice continues and says, "That you?" and so I assume that the silhouette belongs to someone who knows me well enough to recognize me while I'm going through an almost hallucinatory stupor inside a car.

At least it seems like I will spare myself the horror of knocking on the front door.

* * *

A/N: I've been debating right until this moment whether I should switch to present time narrative, or just forget all about it and not change anything. I'm not so sure, but I hope I made the right decision. Andbutso I think this makes sense, so anyway.

Oh, and a couple of quick things: "Tomorrow's another day until there's not another tomorrow," is a quote taken from David Milch, and David Milch is a genius capable of making poetry out of curse words. I present Deadwood and John From Cincinnati as proof. "I fell in love with the world in you," is the chorus of Noah and The Whale's 'Hold My Hand As I'm Lowered'. I listen to a lot of music while giving writing a try, but the only band that never fails to inspire me is this one. Seriously, I love them so much, it's sort of ridiculous - you should definitely check them out, they're awesome. Oh, and, and, and The Beatles song is ' Why Don't We Do It In The Road', obviously.

And anyway, just one more chapter to go. Hah, I'm kinda sad this is ending. Lost of very sincere thanks for leaving me those amazing (and I mean AMAZING) reviews. It's very likely most of you are being way too good to me, although I'm not really complaining :)!


	13. Chapter 13

"Hey, Chandler! What the hell are you doing?"

Ross. The person tapping on my window and scaring the hell out of me is Ross. Obviously.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite a happy camper because it's not the Geller patriarch carrying a shotgun, but now I feel sort of stupid for getting very worked up about it, and for taking so much time to figure out something so incredibly simple. First of all, it's not like I'm super famous in Long Island, and if the voice belongs to a man, well, then there aren't lots of options left.

I'm nervous, and I think it has something to do with me being actually here, and this being real, and Ross being outside, probably wondering what's wrong with me. Even if I'd like to tell you how I calmly open the door and get out while retaining all my composure, what I actually do is pathetically burst through it, almost face-planting Ross in the process. He steps back on time, though, witnessing the scene with obvious bewilderment.

"Hey, man," I nervously, quickly say once I'm outside, shutting the door of the car. "How did you- I mean, what are you- but how-" I stop and take a deep breath. Perhaps this will effectively make my brain put different words in a coherent order. "How did you know I'm here?"

Ross apparently thinks this is funny, because he laughs. "Well, you _are_ in front of my house, dude."

Of course, that was a dumb question.

"Oh, yes, of course. And hey, what are you- you alone?" I ask, because when you unload dumb questions, you unload them one after the other, apparently. Ross just looks around for a second, kind of amused. While he does that, I realize how incredibly summer-y he looks, wearing shorts and flip-flops in my presence for the first time in the two years I've known him. So, Ross actually has legs, that's a revelation.

"Yeah, I think so," he says then, stifling a perplexed laugh and shifting the six-pack of beers in his hands. "Look, I'm happy to see you and all, so don't take this the wrong way, but why are you here, man?"

"Sure, don't worry, I just um..." I shrug, nervously scratching my forehead. "I wanted to talk to Monica, actually. I mean, if that's okay."

"Oh," he says, taking a moment to process this information. "Yeah, sure. I mean, she's at a party, which is where I come from and where I was going now, in fact," he finally says, lifting his beers, and I nod. "Just came by to pick more beers. You can come with me and look for her if you want, it's only a couple blocks away."

"Really?" I say, smiling a genuine smile. "That'd be great, thanks."

Then, just like that, Ross and I go; he leads, I follow. It sounds so simple in a world where nothing is simple, it's suspicious. On the way over, he offers me one of his beers, I decline. But he has one of his beers for himself anyway. He also asks me about my summer, I ask him about his. And then he starts pointing out all the obvious differences between Manhattan and the suburbs, which in the end turns out to be a peculiar way of telling me that he likes living in the city better. I agree. I drift and think about Monica. I think about Monica more, and I think about the scary proximity between Monica and myself.

But Ross is still talking, and maybe in another situation I'd care, but now I just don't, and to top it all off, he's somehow managed to turn the conversation to his favorite topic in the world, which is a topic I care about even less: Carol. He explains she's been here with him and his family this week, and that she just left yesterday. He says he misses her, because of course he does.

I ask him how she is, maybe out of masochism, and this causes Ross' face to pull into a goofy grin, and then he keeps rubbing his enviable happiness in my lonely, relationshipless face, and I don't think I'm listening, because I think I can only focus on the distant music coming from one of these houses, but it turns out I am, because he's saying something very poignant, and I'm sort of hearing him.

"This might sound corny," he's saying, "but she's the woman of my dreams, man, she's the love of my life. I just feel so lucky that she chose to be with me," he continues, his face brightening. "Ah, but I can't really explain all this, not correctly, at least. It just _is_, you know?"

And I kinda do.

I must admit that Ross is not a very innovative fellow - his relationship with Carol has never interested me much, yet I'm pretty sure he uttered those exact same words last time I asked. Funnily enough, while last time I just rolled my eyes behind his back and fought the urge to give him a friendly pat on the head, this time his words don't sound devoid of meaning, as if he were speaking in a different language. This time I know what he's talking about. I really do.

"But anyway, this is it," he says when I fall silent, pointing at the two-story brick house in front of us where there's music blasting from within. I breathe, I nod, Ross squirms. Wait, squirms? "But listen, man. Before we go inside, I wanna tell you something."

"Yeah, sure, tell me something," I nervously smile, but he keeps opening and closing his mouth without saying a word, and he keeps squirming in place, and so I decide to join him. "C'mon, man, you're scaring me."

"Ah, it's nothing, I just..." he trails off, exhaling. It's like he's struggling to find all the right words, and I truly don't know what to expect or what those right words are supposed to be. "I think she's in there with a guy, actually. I feel like I should tell you before you go in, y'know, just in case. I'm sorry."

And okay, that didn't quite feel like nothing. It's ridiculous how real this feels in my head, but I seriously think time has stilled in real life. Maybe I've just forgotten how to breathe, I don't know. Given how time seems to be detained, though, I don't fail to notice how my heart is hammering scarily fast against my ribs, and how blood is surging in my ears with impressive speed.

Fuck. How can I be so goddamn naïve? I've been so focused on my own misery, that I've never even considered the possibility that she could've moved on to better things. God. Of course she has moved on to better things.

Now Ross is swaying slightly in front of me, and this jolts me back into the real world, which is a world where time has not really stopped, and it's also a world where my face has just ridiculously blanked for a few seconds. He's looking at me like he's expecting me to say something, but I seriously don't know what I'm supposed to be saying.

To be honest, I'm heavily considering the option of running back home surrounded by my own shame, but I also know the urge of seeing her after having driven up here is incredibly huge, so I guess you can assume it's extremely hard for me to discern which option is more attractive.

"You okay?" Ross finally decides to break my silence.

"Yeah," I swallow. In reality I'm thinking that, well, not really, but thanks for asking.

"And, hey, you still sure about refusing that beer?" he semi-laughs, picking one for himself now that the other bottle's empty. I wave my hand in refusal again. I want to drown myself in alcohol, actually, but I also want to act like a reasonable person. Ross claps me on the back, understanding. "Okay, anyway, maybe it's nothing, who knows," he tries to reassure me, kind of lamely. "But we're still going in, right?"

"Right," I say, not in a really convincing tone, but Ross starts to climb up the porch stairs anyway, making his way through some people hanging in the porch itself afterwards. My legs, on the other hand, have decided to cheerfully transform themselves into jelly, because they apparently want to make even harder for me the 'easy' job of going up some stairs that lead to someone whose heart I mercilessly broke a few weeks ago.

But anyway, I finally give it a try, as best as I can, and I don't seem to fall flat on my face, so while I go up, I momentarily drift away from the entire world again, and I think of Monica with that other guy, and I think of the possibility of him being better-looking than me or, even worse, funnier than me. And oh, the horror.

Once those killer, five steps are behind us, Ross goes to the front door, opens it, and then we're welcomed by quite an unpleasant wave of loud music that seems to slap us in the face, and then the smell of sweaty, congregated humans, mixed with the smoke of something that feels a tad illegal. You can imagine our desire to step in is not too strong, but we do it all the same, which is when Ross begins to yell.

"MON'S HERE SOMEWHERE," he says over the music, probably not aware of how ridiculous he sounds and looks. "I'M GONNA GO TO THE KITCHEN, BUT SEE IF YOU CAN FIND HER."

"Alright, man," I indifferently say, looking around, crossing my arms, and acting like I don't know this deaf fellow.

"SORRY, WHAT?" he points to his ear. First I open my mouth again, but then I just give him a thumbs up, because it's a universal sign he'll probably understand. I think he might be drunk. "AH, OKAY. WELL, GOOD LUCK."

And then, before I can properly react, Ross is hugging me, like really hugging me in a squeezing kind of way, and he's yelling in my ear that he loves me, man, and that he hopes everything works out for me.

Now that I think about it, Ross was coming back from the party when I saw him, and he's drank like two more beers in my presence since then. He's definitely drunk. But it's okay, I like Drunk Ross as much as you can like an intoxicated person, even if his volume seems to go up to unearthly levels and he gets overly friendly. So I thank him for his nice words and hug him back, seriously meaning it.

And after this, just as quickly, he's completely gone, as if he's mysteriously evaporated. Now, of course I wish he'd keep shouting in my face for an entire hour, because I'm not ready to face the ugly truth of having to look for Monica only to see her laughing at someone else's jokes.

Okay, positive thoughts only, Chandler. Positive thoughts.

The thing is, I try to swim through the mob of people for a moment, craning my neck to check if I can see something, but when it turns out to be completely futile, I simply stop and sort of give up. This is so crowded, I can't even think straight - I never thought I'd wish Monica was a 6 feet tall woman, but now I sure do. I can't even discern anything in the far away distance (and I mean everything that's not within five inches from me), so I am only left with the option of examining the people who are directly surrounding me.

Just to give you an idea, to my right there's a horny couple making out in the middle of the room, acting as if the end is dangerously near and they want to make the most of it. With my luck, one of them is probably Monica, but I've actually checked: it's not her. To my left, there's this guy whose most noteworthy characteristics are his diminutive stature and douchey mustache, plus the fact that he's smoking all by himself this giant spliff, from which he takes a ridiculously enormous drag and blows the smoke in my face. I cough, yet he doesn't look bothered by his actions - I am not liking this party at all. I'm also starting to feel really bad for the owners of this house.

"Oops, sorry," another short guy says after crashing into me and splashing his drink over someone else. I turn around, starting to feel slightly anxious, yet still about to offer him some reassuring words.

"Hey, don't wor-" I start, but then I look over his shoulder, and Monica comes into view. Her back is pressed to a wall next to the stairs, and the most ridiculous thing is she's just standing in plain sight.

Something weird is happening. Maybe it is because I have low tolerance to marijuana, or maybe because I am just plain biased, because even if I know that this is as unlikely as it is untrue, I swear, in my head, she is actually glowing. Even in the crowded room, there's something about her that radiates out to me, it's amazing. She's just there, with a plastic cup in her hands, and she looks serious, but she looks gorgeous, and this glowing thing ends up being so blinding that it takes me quite some time to move, and even more time to notice the guy that's standing next to her.

He is all I can see now, though.

He's smiling at her with a perfect set of white teeth, and I decide to blame it on the reefer again, but he seriously becomes taller, stronger, and more handsome with every step I take in their direction, and damn, I'm starting to feel really self-conscious. I left my house in some kind of daze, not paying attention if my hair looked decent, or if my clothes were mismatched. I only know for sure that I'm too afraid to check.

Although when I look at his clothes, I stop worrying a bit - he's wearing one of those jackets (even in hell-like temperatures like right now, yes) that football stars wear during their golden years in high school, and I can't believe Monica's even considered dating one of those morons that will never get over their high school years, because nothing will ever stack up to them.

Anyway, I don't even have an opening line, but acting casual is the only card I've got up my sleeve, even if it's quite a ridiculously bad one, and so when I'm close enough to them, I grace them with excessive throat clearing, and then I say, as casually as I can, "Hey."

"Hey, bro," he says to me as if we're intimate friends, patting my back, which might sound friendly, but still, he says it like he's doing me a favor, and he does it with a definite air of superiority, and oh, I smell jerk.

Monica's head is turned in the other direction, probably because in all my casualness she hasn't even heard me, but since this ex-high schooler Prince Charming is saluting someone, her head turns, and she finally sees me. Her eyes widen, and her words and ideas seem to catch in her throat.

"Chandler, wha-what are you doing here?" she stumbles over her words, her eyes skipping around the room like she's somehow expecting a cameraman to burst through the front door to tell her that she's obviously being the punchline of some practical joke.

"Oh, you know this guy?" he says into her hair, and I officially feel very offended. I know I've been in his presence for around 20 seconds (which is enough), but the way he talks about me, how he feels totally unthreatened by my persona, and the way he patted my back as if to imply I couldn't get a girl like Monica in a million years. Oh, man. I hate him. "Who's this? Your brother?"

"No," Monica says, shortly. I've been reduced to the feared brother category, this is fantastic.

"Oh," he says. This doesn't really make him happy, so he fidgets a little in place and takes a quick sip of his drink. He's being possessive over my ex-girlfriend - what is happening? Uncomfortable silence ensues. That is, until he fights it. "Well, then introduce us, no?" he insists, poking her in the arm. Monica kind of looks at him in disapproval because of this, and I sure feel a bit better.

"Sure," she says after a moment's consideration, and then points at me, "This is Chandler. And Chandler..." she points at him, "this is Dan."

"Stan," Stan corrects her, Monica ignores him, and I feel much, much better.

"Why are you here?" she asks me, not Stan, even though his presence here is also questionable.

"I wanted to talk to you?" I answer her question with another question, realizing how unsure I am of everything. Lately, I just seem to end all my sentences with a question mark, even the ones where a question mark makes no sense at all.

"Well, I'm sorry, but she's with me, not you, man," cuts in Stan, and I'd definitely punch him in his smug face if I wasn't aware of how little intimidating I am perceived by the rest of the world. Monica shoots him more disapproving looks, because you don't bossy around Monica Geller, my friend. Rookie mistake.

"Look," she starts, handing him her plastic cup, "why don't you go get a drink, and in the meantime, we're gonna talk outside, okay?"

"Oh," Stan says first, but before I can hear what he says later, Monica's gripping my arm and dragging me to the backyard, where she looks for some privacy and gets it: surprisingly, it's the only place in this house that is completely deserted.

"Who's that guy?" I ask once we're out, because I can't resist myself. Sidenote: there's a porch swing here that we both seem to ignore.

"Dan?" she asks while stepping down the stairs of the back porch. "I don't even know him."

"You mean Stan, right?" I say around a small laugh I'm not able to repress.

"Chandler, come on, why are you here?" she says, exasperated, cutting right to the chase. I stop in the middle of the yard first, giving her the opportunity to determine the distance between us, which ends up being quite significant.

"Oh, I just..." I trail off, suddenly feeling like a deer trapped in the headlights, everything I've prepared the whole way over flying out of my head."I just wanna make things right," I clumsily say around a shrug, not finding a better expression. Monica sighs ruefully, which I'm smart enough to know is not a good start.

"Right how? You haven't done anything wrong that needs to be turned into a right here," she says, quite wrongly, by the way, but I don't want to interrupt her. "I just, I loved you more than you loved me, which happens all the time, and it's okay," she continues, and how many times has she said that bullshit to herself, I wonder. "And who were we kidding, anyway? Young love never seems to last, by the way, and we shoud've known that, so please, I just wanna go back inside, because Dan is waiting for me, and overall, this is just a terribly bad idea, and you shouldn't have come here in the first place," she babbles, turning around already and making her way up the stairs, and while I am perfectly aware that I keep saying the wrong thing at all times, I'm starting to get the feeling that she always flees from the place in these crucial moments, too.

So, I briefly wonder what could possibly make her stop and listen to me, and only one thing comes to mind, and I shout after her, "I love you!" clearly trying to demonstrate my stupidity one last time. Silver lining is, at least she abruptly stops, allowing me to come up with something cleverer, or a little less stupid. "Wait, no," I say then, shutting my eyes in defeat, "that came out all wrong, I had like, a speech prepared."

And Monica just looks at me for a second in which I desperately try to gauge her reaction, and then she starts walking straight in my direction without saying a single word, and for a blissful moment I actually think she's going to put her arms around my shoulders and give me the french kiss of my life, having somehow found my ineptitude totally endearing, but then she puts her hands on my chest instead, and I know I've never been more wrong before in my life.

"If you loved me, you'd let me be happy!" she angrily yells, pushing me quite hard, and then continues yelling, "Oh, you've got some balls, Chandler!"

Now, let's remember that she is stronger than she looks, and that balance hasn't always been my friend. Fortunately for me, there's a tree behind my body that prevents me from falling to the ground and having to suffer further humiliation. Unfortunately for me, if Monica was a cartoon, steam would be coming out of her ears for sure.

"Well, are you happy?" I ask with my back pressed to the tree, fearing her reaction, but wanting to know the answer. In the end, her reaction isn't as bad as one would expect: her breathing stops being so erratic, her eyes stop looking like they're gonna pop out of her sockets, and she visibly calms down, mellowing slightly. Bad thing is, she isn't mad anymore, now she just looks downright sad.

"No..." she glumly answers, plopping down on the porch stairs. "Are you happy now?"

This isn't by any means a happiness contest, but given how I'm a selfish bastard, it certainly makes me less miserable than knowing she is a happy gal without me. I am not going to tell her that, though. "Of course not, Monica," I say as I lower myself on the stairs, too, right next to her, but not close enough as to make her uncomfortable. Monica nods, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Okay," she says, swallowing, and then pauses. "Well, I'm sorry I just pushed you."

"I'm sorry I just made you push me," I answer.

Our breathing matches. We sit there together for a few seconds in silence, and I break it by clicking my tongue for a moment, but then I feel her eyes fixing me with a stare, and I stop. "What's that about?" she finally says, changing the subject, and pointing at my pathetic, uneven stubble.

"Oh, this," I say, straightening myself. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I'm sporting a scruff that any decent male could've grown after two days of not shaving, but that, in all truth, comes from me not picking up a razor in a week and a half. "This is the result of me being extremely lazy."

"It looks good on you," she probably lies, resting her head on the palm of her hand.

"Hah, thanks," I say, turning my head away with a shy smile.

"You're welcome."

But, anyway, as much as I enjoy compliments, I feel like we're standing hundreds of feet away from the real subject, and I want to get back on track. I don't want to talk about facial hair, what I want is for her to know, and so I get serious again and try: "Anyway, you know who convinced me to come over here?"

"Surprise me," she mumbles, still looking intently at me.

"My mom," I break into a silly grin, "which is funny, because she's also the one who taught me that love doesn't last longer than three months," I say, matter of factly, and Monica smiles sweetly at me, and God, how much I've missed that, you have no idea.

"Your mom is-"

"It's true, ya know," I blurt, in an even more serious voice.

She pauses briefly. "What is?"

"What I said before," I say with a nod, and she nods, too, but then she starts shaking her head.

"This is a bit unfair, isn't it?" she sighs, burying her face in her hands. "I mean, I sometimes can't even remember how we ended up like this, because, I mean, we were just so good together, and then one day, it was like: yeah, not anymore."

"Well, I think we ended up like this 'cause I fucked up," I half-joke, half-say the absolute truth.

"Okay, yeah, that's probably it," her lips quirks at the corners as she agrees with me, and I gulp down some air.

I'm not going to lie, I can't even remember half of what I've kind of badly rehearsed in the car, what my ideas were, or what I wanted her to know, but there are words and ideas coming to my brain now that weren't there before, and my mouth is starting to let them out. There's a shift happening. This has proven not to be the case on many occasions, but sometimes, I think, it's best if you don't put too much thought into this kind of stuff, so this time I wisely don't.

"You know, I've had a lot of time to think, lately," I start, and Monica looks into my eyes, and I love it when she does that, and it just encourages me to continue, "and funny thing is, I just keep going back to that night where we watched Risky Business together."

Monica's still looking at me, and I'm looking at her, and her eyes are flickering with recognition, because how could they not. "Oh, what a great movie," she says with a mischievous smile she tries to hide. I chuckle.

"It sure was, but anyway, let's not forget you fell asleep like 30 minutes in, leaving me to watch Rebecca De Mornay and Tom Cruise doing adult stuff all by myself."

"That's not completely true," she points out, still smiling. "But keep going."

"And I will, because that wasn't the point," I say.

"All right. What's the point."

"The point is, when the movie was over, I quietly took you to your bed, but you woke up when I was leaving anyway, and of course you refused to admit that you'd fallen asleep in the first place," I recount, and now it's Monica's turn to chuckle, "and you were sleepy and kinda grumpy, but you still begged me to stay, which I did, and so I slept with you, literally, and I clearly remember that it was the first time we spent the whole night together. You remember that?"

"I do," she says, she does.

"And anyway, the next morning, you started rubbing my back while I was sleeping, even before the sun was up, and I woke up because of it, and I know now that that's probably the best way possible to wake up. Because I opened my eyes, and you were just smiling at me, and I swear, it was so early, but you looked so gorgeous, and I felt _so_ happy that you were there, and we were together, and it just, God..." I trail off, my hands moving, trying to express with silence what I cannot with words.

"I felt the same way, y'know," she whispers, and while I perfectly know, how unfair it is that she doesn't.

"Point is, I fucking want you to rub my back while I'm sleeping," I say, and she looks down at her hands, nervously fiddling with them. "I know it sounds selfish and weird, but it's small, stupid things like that I miss the most," I say, thinking I've finished, but she looks at me again, throwing me invisible daggers, and I feel the need to rephrase, "I mean, not stupid, but, well, you know what I mean, right?"

There's my question mark again, but Monica doesn't say anything next, even when she looks like she wants to say a lot of things. I start to feel like she's just the most amazingly complicated thing in the entire world, and I love the way she looks when she's debating over whether or not to smile, which is what's happening right now. I'm also fascinated by how fantastically beautiful she looks under this transitioning sunlight, to the point that, I swear to God, all I want to do is kiss her, right here in front of these cherished swings.

I'm pretty sure I'm on a roll, and I'm pretty sure this might be the first time in my life when I'm not feeling overly self-conscious. I slide my body closer to her body, no longer worried about making her uncomfortable. I reach out my hand to where hers are resting on her lap, because I feel like I might actually die if I don't hold hands with her right now. It's not until her hand is in mine that I realize she's got the option of rejecting my touch, which I reckon would still be somewhat reasonable. But here is the most wonderful thing: she doesn't, and it's not a kiss, but it feels completely exhilarating all the same.

"Do you like this Stan guy?" I ask out of nowhere, brushing my thumb over her knuckles.

"No," she says, and the sureness with which she utters that word makes my heart flutter a bit, which is somewhat pathetic. "In fact, I think I kinda hate him a little."

"Yeah, I kinda hate him a little, too," I banter a bit, and Monica laughs, and I find that Monica laughing at something I've said is the only thing I need in this life. "See what I'm talking about? I'm pretty sure you are my soulmate, and I'm pretty sure you are my soulmate in the weirdest, sickest way possible, because we might not like the same things, but we sure hate the same stuff, and I think that's beautiful."

"Oh, you're so dumb," she says around another laugh, pushing me lightly with her free hand, and just now I'm realizing that most wonderful moments of my life have started with her uttering those magical words.

"Consensus is you're right," I agree, nodding slowly. Her laughter starts to drift away now, becoming a distant sound that just echoes in my ears.

"And... you hurt me," she says. "A lot. I wholeheartedly poured my heart out to you, and you couldn't do the same for me."

"Yes," I agree again. "Because I'm dumb, remember?"

"Okay so, well, now that we've acknowledged that, why don't you just tell me what you're trying to tell me," she whispers the suggestion, squeezing my hand.

"Oh, fuck," I say, which is not what I was trying to tell her, by the way. "I just, uh, I guess I didn't have to say the words for it to be true, that's what I'm trying to say," I whisper back. It's like I've been getting closer to her with every word I've whispered, and she's now so close to me, I think it might actually drive me insane. "I mean, you seriously are the greatest thing about me, Monica."

"I think you might be overestimating me a little," she says. "You're not perfect, but I'm not perfect, either. I actually think we were just wonderfully imperfect together, you know?"

"Yeah, you're probably right, but I don't know," I mumble, shrugging. "All I know for sure is, I don't believe in God, but every time we talked, and every time we laughed, and every time we made love, oh my God, I swear one actually existed."

I'm being so sincere for the first time in my life, I think I want to cry. And I think she wants to cry, too. I've come to a point where I can't move on, but I can't stay the same, either. I want to be with her, or I want some sort of closure. Right now, I think I'm getting to be with her, but I'm not completely certain.

So then I say, "For fuck's sake, I don't seem to remember what life's all about without you. That's all I wanna say, okay?" and she smiles at this, and I smile at her, and I realize that the only way to correctly express myself at the moment is by throwing real stuff in between a bunch of curse words, and so this time I just lean over and I kiss her.

It's such a silly thing, really. I kiss her without knowing if she's going to kiss me back, but when she does, I realize I am, in fact, the happiest little guy in the whole wide world. I want to capture all this in my mind and heart, I really do; how we're still holding hands, or how this all feels in every part of my body, which, believe you me, is hard to put into words. And still, before it turns completely real, I brush my fingers over her cheekbone and whisper in this hoarse voice: "I love you so fucking much."

And she kind of giggles, disentangles her fingers from mine, puts both her hands on my face, tells me to shut up, and then she kisses me again.

I think it's a bit unfair if I don't start by saying that I've kissed Monica plenty of times in the past, but that I can't deny either how this is the most fucking amazing kiss of my entire life. It's like her heartbeat starts moving through me when I finally open my mouth, and she presses her body to mine a bit while raking her hands through my hair, and her lips might taste even better than ever, and her tongue might move with mine like it's always been supposed to move with mine. While all this is going on, though, I wonder to myself once more, for real this time, what did I do in a past life to deserve this.

I'm not sure, but I assume it must've been something pretty fucking great.

"Hey, Charlton! Why are you making out with my date, dude?"

I think Monica's date is hovering over us, but the way his voice sounds to my ears makes it feel as if he's on another astral plane entirely. But no, it's truly him, and if I wasn't fond of this guy before, interrupting the best kiss of my life isn't going to earn him any points.

Monica and I pull apart slowly, like it physically pains us to do it, and I can assure you that on the inside I'm definitely groaning, but that I'm not about to say anything out loud, because despite all the euphoria I might be feeling at the moment, I am still acutely aware of the fact that this guy could physically destroy me if he wanted to.

I'll leave Monica to handle this problem. After all, it's her date. I press two fingers to my lips since the kiss is still somehow lingering there, and Monica gets up from the porch stairs, and looks at Dan like she's tired of his entire existence. I act like the whole thing has nothing to do with me, because I'm really brave.

"Look, it was nice meeting you and all," she says, tugging at the fabric of my shirt. I take this as a 'suggestion' for me to get up immediately. "But, I think Charlton and I are gonna go, yeah. I'm really sorry," she finishes, and it looks like the superiority he felt in my presence before has now vanished, and I find that, strangely, that's not what's making me absolutely happy right now.

Monica takes my hand again, and she goes through the backyard's sliding door with me in tow. Dan's left behind looking like a fool, but still, the guy takes it considerably well, and I gotta give him that. Maybe in all my irrational hatred, I've judged him too quickly.

Once we're inside, we make our way through the crowd together, where the guy of diminutive stature and douchey mustache is just happily rolling himself another fattie, and where the couple that had been acting like two wild animals mating in the jungle is now laughing at the spectacular unknown in marvelous unison, and this feels so corny, like all is right with the world now, but I see Drunk Ross through the masses of people, and I think he sees us, too. I give him another thumbs up without Monica noticing, and he gives me a happy nod of approval, raising another bottle of beer in our direction.

So corny, indeed.

I don't know when we've silently made this decision, but we both go out of this trashed house and party without questioning each other, and when we've completely stepped out the front door and gone down the stairs, and when I finally think I can hear my thoughts again, she abruptly spins around, and given she's been charging ahead of me, I almost crash into her, but in the end I don't, because she crashes into me first, wrapping her arms around my back and burying her head in my chest.

"Look, even if I'm not, I should be ultra pissed at you," she says while giving me this unexpected hug, her voice almost completely muffled. "I hope you know that."

"Yeah, I know that," I say, putting my arms around her once these three long seconds of utter confusion have passed. "I'm sorry."

"And you're a moron," she adds, holding me tighter, if that is even possible.

"Yeah, I know that too," I concede again, pressing my lips to her temple. "Listen, I'm done screwing things up, and I'm definitely more than tired of being a moron," I whisper into her hair, and then joke, "so if, God forbid, we're not together in the foreseeable future, just know that it was totally your fault."

"Okay," she says around an adorable laugh, looking up at me and putting her arms around my neck. "That's a deal."

"God, I've missed you so much," I earnestly say while she plays with the hair at the nape of my neck in a way that almost makes me feel like I am going to pass out. Then she looks at me with a beaming smile, which doesn't really help my cause.

"I've missed you too," she earnestly responds.

"And I love you," I continue, just in case.

"Yeah, I love you back. See? I can be dumb, too," she responds again, leaning closer and restarting the fucking amazing kiss that got interrupted before, but that this time keeps going for as long as we decide, which in an effort to be gentlemanly, I will not give away.

I feel happy, that is it. And I hope she feels happy, too. I don't want to jump into conclusions, but I honestly think she does. You have no idea how stupid I feel for believing so strongly in the notion that people tended to disappear from my life when things went really far, because even if it was something silly to believe in, it also felt incredibly real when it hit me, to the point that it almost made me lose everything that mattered to me.

Once the kiss is over, Monica insists on showing me around for a bit, and she tells me stuff, and I listen to them, and she tells me she thinks she understands, and I'm glad she does, and when tiredness catches up with us, we lie down under the stars on top of the hood of my mother's old car, as corny as that is once again, but I don't care, and she has her arm draped across my chest, and I am starting to doze off right next to her, and when the thought that I can't possibly be any happier crosses my mind one more time, she says, her voice low but confident, "Chandler?"

It takes me a while to return to earth, but after a second, I answer, "Yeah."

And she says: "I told you so."

And then she laughs softly, and I laugh along with her, because I am truly glad, at least for once, that she's been completely right all this time.

THE END.

* * *

A/N: And then the kingdom was his forever and they lived happily ever after. Come on, they're Mondler! But welp, welp, welp, that's a wrap, folks. Long author's note ahead, by the way.

That was corny. And long. And some of you actually believed they weren't gonna end up together, but, I mean, what kind of monster do you think I am?

Anyway, I don't even know where to start thanking you for all the support, super nice words, theories (theories!), and reviews in general I've gotten, and I know I keep repeating myself, so maybe this time I'll just say: ¡MUCHAS GRACIAS!

Seriously. This all started because one day, some months ago, I couldn't sleep at night, and the idea of Monica and Chandler sneaking into his home and looking through childhood pictures of him wouldn't leave my mind, and hence this thing was clumsily born, and it all developed from there.

I haven't written anything before in my life, so I didn't even consider posting it at first, but then I was like, what the hell, I've got nothing better to do, and your support has been so great from the beginning that it's been more than worth it. Narrating this in the first person has been a challenge, too, but I've also had a lot of fun getting into Chandler's head, and if one of you believes I did a good job portraying it, well, then I can consider myself happy.

Now, in case anyone is interested: I wrote a one-shot a long time ago I might even consider posting (probably not, but I thought I'd throw this out there), and then there's another multi-chapter fic I can't get out of my mind but that's not written yet, so we'll see what happens with that one, because in all fairness, I'm quite excited about it.

But, I'm super busy with finals right now, so perhaps you'll hear from me when I'm finally free. That's what I'm hoping for, at least!

And that's pretty much it. Thanks again to all the usual reviewers, lovely guests, and hey, also Mondler2014, who should definitely open that askbox. If you enjoyed this a quarter of how much I enjoyed writing it, then my job here is done. Thank you, thank you, and then again, THANK YOU.


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